


My Way to You

by kuraragi



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:42:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 38,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22093525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuraragi/pseuds/kuraragi
Summary: Yeojin messes around with technology she doesn’t quite understand and accidentally teleports herself to a world in a different galaxy. Back on Earth, Heejin, Hyunjin, Haseul, and Kahei make it their mission to find and bring back their lost friend. On Oec, Jungeun, Jinsol, and Yerim make it their mission to fix whatever anomaly has occurred. Over on Eden, Sooyoung, Jiwoo, Chaewon, and Hyejoo make it their mission to figure out how the human in the strange clothing ended up on their planet.Crossposted on AFF
Relationships: Ha Sooyoung | Yves/Jo Haseul, Jeon Heejin/Kim Hyunjin, Jung Jinsol | Jinsoul/Kim Jungeun | Kim Lip, Kim Jiwoo | Chuu/Viian Wong | ViVi, Park Chaewon | Go Won/Son Hyejoo | Olivia Hye
Comments: 10
Kudos: 66





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is going to be my first addition to the LOONA tag, and I hope I can do it justice by actually updating… Just an intro/prologue chapter for me to get a feel for what I want for this in the long run, and to see if anyone would be interested in something like this. If and when I do update, I may redirect you back to this intro/prologue in case something changes. I’ll keep you updated on that! 
> 
> _These italics_ are inner thoughts, while _“these italics”_ are either past dialogue or communication through a medium (ie. a phone), depending on the context. If it isn’t clear enough, please let me know, and I will try to format it to make it easier to understand. 
> 
> Not proofread. 
> 
> Archive warnings are subject to change as the story progresses. 
> 
> Happy reading!

It was chilly this morning as Sooyoung grumbled sleepily. It was also quiet this morning.  _ Good, _ she thought as she lifted her body off the stone floor of their den and stretched, yawning widely in the process. She glanced back to give her pack a look over before she decided it was okay to leave them for now and walked into the dense forest before her. She padded along the muddy, mossy floor as she neared the edge of her favorite cliff and couldn’t help but squint as the sun was beginning to make itself known from across the valley that separated her territory and the Dragon’s Tail. There was a lot of snow covering the peaks this morning, and Sooyoung breathed in the cool morning air as she smiled a bit at the knowledge that winter has returned. The season brought back memories of a harsher time, but Sooyoung could never let something like that get in the way of enjoying her favorite season of the year. 

She liked the coolness of the wind against her skin, and she could blend easier in the snow, making it easier for her to hunt. Not that she wasn’t a great hunter, but her leg had its days, and she didn’t like having to rely on Hyejoo so much when hunting larger prey. Jiwoo and Chaewon were just as capable, but Sooyoung hated it more when she had to rely on them to get food for her. 

_ “It’s only the four of us, Sooyoung,”  _ Chaewon would whine sometimes when Sooyoung refused to let her hunt large game with Hyejoo.  _ “And winter is nowhere near so there are plenty of rabbits and even fish. We don’t even need that much food!”  _ Jiwoo was good at getting her to let the younger be, often coaxing Sooyoung on a stroll around the edge of the mountain they call home. If there was anything Sooyoung loved more than the winters that covered the Serpent's Back, then it was the views she got when she walked the very edges of her territory that led into the depths of the Cauldron. Something about being so close from falling to her death, yet being in complete control of her fate filled Sooyoung with a sense of power, that despite being a mortal being, she still had control of how she wanted to live her life. 

Her leg was having a relatively good day today, but she knew that being so exposed to the cold winds at the beginning of winter would send chills into her bones and wrack her leg with aches. She’ll probably have to rely heavily on Hyejoo to hunt for them again for the first few nights when winter fully hits so her body can get used to the cold before she is able to hunt without the worry of injuring herself chasing game or running into a challenger looking to take her land or pack. Sooyoung has yet to lose to any challenges, and she certainly was not going to let some old injury get the best of her. 

Her ears perked back when she hears steps behind her and knew before she turned her head who it was. Hyejoo was larger than she was and rough around the edges due to still being quite young, so she didn’t walk with the same care Sooyoung prided herself with. Her size and youth made it much easier for her to forget stealth and just chase and grab her prey though, so Hyejoo rarely took the time to stake her targets, which meant less practice stealth. Not to say that Sooyoung was old, but she was tired. If she could reserve energy by just being patient and quiet, she would much rather do that than sprint through the trees to catch their next meal. Sprinting across the tundra was a different story. Chaewon was the smallest of them all and prim like a princess. She padded softly wherever she went and could easily sneak up on Sooyoung if not for her nervousness. Chaewon would whip around too much, her body brushing constantly against branches or bushes as she made her way anywhere. Jiwoo was around Sooyoung's age though and also tired. Jiwoo rarely, if at all, heavily engaged in hunts after they met Hyejoo and Chaewon, but the muscle memory from before the two youngsters joined their small pack kept her light on her feet and away from any loose rocks or dry leaves. Sooyoung also noticed the near non-existence of a scent, and it was all those things that gave away the identity of her partner this morning. 

“Good morning, Sooyoung,” Jiwoo greeted as she stretched and laid down beside her at the edge of the cliff. 

“Didn’t you just get up?” Sooyoung teased. Jiwoo swiped at one of her legs with a giggle, making certain she didn’t touch the sensitive one. 

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t have gotten up if you just stayed in the den,” Jiwoo reasoned. She flopped on her side to face Sooyoung. “Any reason you’re out of the den this early? I know winter is approaching, but that usually isn’t enough to get you up,” Sooyoung scoffed, but couldn’t say anything against that. They’ve known each other for four winters, and when half that time was spent between just the two of them, Sooyoung wasn’t surprised when Jiwoo knew some things about her before it even came across her mind. 

“Just staking the land out to see if the usual prey is around. Hyejoo might have to hunt on her own for a few days so I may just ask her to hunt rabbits, maybe even fish if the river hasn’t frozen over yet,” she tried. She could feel the doubt radiating off of Jiwoo, but the smaller simply sighed before facing the view, her neck craning a bit to look over the edge. 

“Why don’t Chaewon and I accompany her? If we bring down a deer or caribou, it’d last a little longer. Then Hyejoo won’t have to go out for too long every morning, and you can stop worrying she’ll ignore you and go after something larger like she did two winters ago.” 

“She was fine a winter ago.” 

“Yeah, because Chaewon went with her most of the time. Chaewon actually listens to you, while Hyejoo keeps thinking you’re overprotective.” 

“I’m not overprotective,” Sooyoung shot back. 

“Soo, you kept Chaewon in the den ten nights after her first heat with us and even kicked Hyejoo out to the den near Cape Diamond despite Chaewon barely starting her preheat at the time. You still closely watch over Chaewon even when her heat passes, and you go hunt by yourself if Hyejoo offhandedly mentions she’s tired the night before,” Jiwoo reminded. 

“I just want you all to be comfortable, okay? And you can never be too safe with a pli-” Jiwoo quickly turned to her feet before nipping at her neck, a warning. 

“Don’t call her that,” she snapped. Sooyoung almost growled, but she held back, knowing Jiwoo meant well. 

“What else am I supposed to do? Pretend the rest of the world doesn’t treat her like some easy target to be locked with an abusive mate? Because the last time I let Chaewon out on her own, she got attacked,” Sooyoung said lowly. She and Jiwoo never really got into disagreements, especially after settling their initial differences. But something one can never change is how one was raised and how that influenced someone in the long run. Sooyoung was strictly taught to never take advantage of omegas, especially pli- Well, she vowed to stop using that term with her pack. As an alpha in their society, it was her responsibility to uphold respect for the most vulnerable, and that included those like Chaewon and even Jiwoo. Jiwoo was raised differently than she was, and even though they saw past their differences, it didn’t mean they weren’t acknowledged. 

“No, of course not. You’re doing so well in protecting Chaewon and guiding Hyejoo,” Jiwoo said sincerely, searching her eyes for some kind of response. “I just think that at some point, you have to let them go to find themselves in this world, regardless of what it's like past the river. You can’t care for them forever,” Jiwoo said gently. Sooyoung dropped to the ground with a grunt, suddenly feeling like a parent having to get over letting her children go off on their own. 

“I can’t believe it’s only been two winters,” Sooyoung mumbled. “I feel like they were just pups when we first met them,” she chuckled at the memory. 

“Well, Hyejoo was smaller than you were back then. She told me she was a late bloomer, and she was not kidding,” Jiwoo joined her as they reminisced about the past. “And Chaewon’s always been pretty small, even for an omega.” 

“Her parents were both betas weren’t they? Don’t betas usually give birth to small alphas and omegas?” 

“I guess. I don’t actually remember any betas back home who had children who presented as anything but betas. If they did, they hid it really well.” 

“Doesn’t the non community have, like, scent… blockers?” 

“Yeah. I never used one though, so I’m not sure how effective they are since no one ever talked about having alpha or omega children.” 

“Damn, you were just living a whole other life,” Sooyoung tried teasing. They rarely talked about the past, and if they did, they tried to keep it as light as possible. 

“At least I was comfortable in a house with a roof, warm food, and a heater,” Jiwoo shot back with a grin. “Unlike somebody who was buried in snow during the Great Freeze.” 

“I got plenty of exercise though running around in that snow, unlike somebody,” Sooyoung was already sprinting back to the den as Jiwoo yelled out, offended, and gave chase. They both knew that Jiwoo would never be able to catch up to Sooyoung in a sprint, but they were going to the same place, and it was only a matter of time before Jiwoo gets a hold of her ear or scruff and tugs at it until she cries mercy. And that was exactly what happened, followed by Hyejoo grumpily getting up. 

"Geez! It's so early, can you not?" she whined, her ears pulling back against her head. Chaewon giggled from her spot against the wall, fondly looking at her small family. 

"Alright, up. Winter is coming and it's your turn to hunt," Sooyoung said, amused when striking gray shot open and black ears perked forward. 

"On my own?" she asked quietly, but Hyejoo already knew the answer, her tail beginning to brush against the stone floor. She and Chaewon have spent two winters with Sooyoung and Jiwoo, so she already knew what this time of year brought. 

"Yes, Hyejoo, on your own," the larger body leaped up and sprinted out of the mouth of the den excitedly, but she didn't go far. After all, "on my own" had taken a whole new meaning as of late. Sooyoung caught Chaewon looking expectantly, but also reserved any excitement she might be feeling. When Sooyoung turned towards her, Chaewon averted her gaze, finding the cracks in the wall very interesting all of a sudden. 

"Chaewon," Jiwoo called, knowing that Chaewon had too much respect for Sooyoung to ask for anything from her. It must be an omega thing to just let the alphas do it all… Or maybe it was a pli- Yeah, it was an omega thing. The smallest of their pack looked up, her tail moving once before stilling again. "You can go too," Jiwoo said. Chaewon’s eyes darted to Sooyoung once before she whispered an, "Assa!" to herself before running towards Hyejoo, who was waiting for her just outside. 

"Just rabbits today, do you hear me?" Sooyoung yelled after them as the two ran down the mountain without a response. "Rascals," Sooyoung muttered. 

"Yet you love them all the same," Jiwoo said with a giggle before embarking on their patrol route. Sooyoung followed quickly after, a smile on her face as they began their trek under the early morning sky with nothing in the air but the chill of the imminent winter, and the resounding howls from Chaewon and Hyejoo. 

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

"Yerim," Jungeun called as she poked her head into their youngest's room. 

"Mm?" she called back from under her covers, not making any moves to visually acknowledge the other. Jungeun sighed before walking up to the purplette and tearing her blankets from her body. 

"Y-yah!" she screeched, her body suddenly embraced by cold. 

"Excuse me? Don't talk to me like that!" Jungeun gave Yerim's calf a reprimanding slap before throwing her blankets back onto the fetus-positioned body. "C'mon, we're going to be late. Again," Jungeun had to remind. An arm popped out from under the mess of blankets to fumble for the phone on the bedside table. Upon bringing the device underneath the blankets, Yerim jumped from her bed, her layers spilling onto the floor as she sprinted down the hall towards the bathroom. 

"Whoa!" Jinsol exclaimed when the shorter girl nearly ran her over with how fast she was moving. 

"Sorry, unnie!" Yerim called from the other side of the locked bathroom door after she had bounced on her toes, waiting for the motion sensor to pick up on her and for the door to slide open. 

"She's still such a handful," Jungeun groaned, walking past Jinsol and back into the kitchen to finish her breakfast. 

"You say that everyday." 

"Yeah, but she's a handful everyday." 

"You invited her onto the team," Jinsol reminded with an unhelpful shrug. 

"I didn't think it would be this hard to wake her up every morning," Jungeun said before shoving the rest of her strawberry, syrup, and powdered sugar covered waffle into her mouth. 

"And you're just as messy as always," Jinsol grimaced. 

"At least I clean up after myself," Jungeun (probably) replied before dutifully cleaning her spot at the kitchen table, not leaving a single crumb of waffle or speck of sugar behind. She then was about to go check up on Yerim when a purple warp suddenly appeared in the kitchen and out came the youngest. Jungeun practically jumped out of her skin and immediately started choking on what she had still been chewing. And Jinsol, like clockwork, handed Jungeun a glass of orange juice so their team leader wouldn't die on them prematurely. 

"Yerim, please stop doing that. You're gonna kill Jungie," Jinsol tried. The other girl just sheepishly giggled before rummaging through their fridge for a quick bite before they run to class. 

“Sorry, unnie,” Yerim said unremorsefully before moving to the snack cabinet when unsatisfied with what was in the fridge. Jungeun froze then, startling Jinsol. 

“What’s up?” she asked. The shorter swiftly turned to where Yerim had appeared from and ran to the bathroom, standing in front of it and waving around the sensor. “Oh no…” she started moving towards Jungeun, ready to intercept her. 

“Oh shi-” Yerim started with a mouth full of gummy bears she found. 

“Choi Yerim! You locked the bathroom! Again!” she practically screeched before running to launch herself at the youngest. Jinsol attempted to grab her, but Jungeun warped past Jinsol and behind Yerim to pull her gummy bear-stuffed cheeks. 

“Unnie, I’m sorry,” Yerim (probably) said. Jinsol sighed and decided that she really needed to teach her other two members to talk  _ after  _ finishing what’s in their mouths. 

“After classes today, it is  _ your  _ responsibility to ask the floor manager to get it open,” Jungeun said exasperatedly. 

“What?” Yerim exclaimed after swallowing her gummy bears. “But she already hates me because I warp too-” as if on cue, there was a knock on the door. Jinsol sighed, again. 

“Right on schedule,” she muttered before opening their dorm door and making sure to step aside for their floor manager to burst in, like every other day, it seems, to lecture Jungeun and Yerim about warping in the dorms. 

They were late to class that day. 

Since they were late anyway, Jungeun and Jinsol dropped Yerim off at her classroom. They watched with amused smiles as the youngest’s instructor just sighed as if Yerim being late was routine at this point. Walking into their classroom was a bit different. Most instructors on campus knew in some way or another that Yerim was a lot to deal with. Whether it be because she was inherently energetic, or because she was a DSJ, most instructors knew that it took one’s full attention to get a hold of and keep track of Yerim. So in a way, they understood, and with a nod, they were gestured towards their seats. 

Their first session, as always, was research. Lately they had been studying ways to maximize their powers as RSJs, but since Jungeun was a Red, she already had hands-on training with this. Jinsol was much more focused than she was and paid no mind to Jungeun’s wandering eyes and fidgeting fingers. Jungeun spotted a few other Reds in her class also not paying much attention, and she figured it was only natural. Their research instructor also wasn’t as scary than the Reds’ training instructor, so Jungeun decided that to fully prepare for her training sessions today, she would put her head down and close her eyes. She also needed to rest after the minor incident this morning, after all. She didn’t expect to completely fall asleep though. Jungeun was jolted awake from Jinsol yelling her name, and upon seeing everyone gone, followed Jinsol as they sprinted towards RSJ training. 

They met Yerim there, and although Yerim had specialized training separate from the other RSJs, Jungeun felt less empty with the younger girl’s presence. She was just a ray of sunshine who brightened Jungeun’s mood whenever she was feeling down. Though she was not without her flaws, and Jungeun was once again reminded that she would probably have to talk to their floor manager herself since Yerim would either forget or refuse to do it because she wouldn’t want to be scolded again. 

This semester, the RSJs trained while the ASJs had their break after the universal research session, so when the ASJs began filing onto the training grounds, Jungeun and Jinsol followed the rest of the RSJs out towards the field for break. Yerim’s RSJ training was cut short so that she could go on with the ASJs, and seeing the younger girl quickly eat and prepare to train with the ASJs reminded Jungeun that Yerim worked twice as hard as most of the other students on campus. It was these moments that allowed Jungeun to see past Yerim being hard to wake up, or Yerim forgetting to study, or Yerim just… being Yerim. Jinsol never forgot, but she was also more lax with what Yerim did. If Jungeun left them alone, she doesn’t know how much of a mess their dorm would be. 

Following ASJ training was a universal break, which is when the field was most populated since everyone was preparing for ability training. Yerim had flopped into Jinsol’s lap and fallen asleep, and the tallest of the trio began lazily braiding the youngest’s hair while she continued her talk with Jungeun. Yerim didn’t always fall asleep from exhaustion after three sessions in a row, but she seemed to be exceptionally worn out today. Jinsol met eyes with Yerim’s ASJ instructor, and the man gave Jinsol a thumbs up from his position across the field. She and Jungeun both knew Yerim worked hard. It was the reason they both were so happy when the girl agreed to be on their team.

_ “Well, you two are the only ones who seem to accept me,”  _ she said after Jungeun had warned that it would just be the three of them. Yerim wasn’t exactly wrong with her words, but Jinsol wanted to let the girl know that the others were just jealous of her. There have been very few recruits to file as DSJs in the Bureau’s history, and Yerim was the first one in over six decades. Because there were so few though, there was a stigma around them, and if it weren’t for Jinsol having done research on DSJs in the past, she was sure that she and Jungeun would have stayed away from Yerim as well. 

She remembers hating that research paper during her third year as a student under the Bureau, and even as a sixth year recruit, Jinsol can’t help but remember how much her head hurt trying to find  _ any  _ case studies or interviews on filed DSJs. But when she sees the eyes people sometimes give Yerim when they walk through the halls or across the lawn, Jinsol can’t help but feel forever grateful for the opportunity to open her mind to people who were different than they were. And it’s not as if Yerim was much different than the rest of them. She was born and presented just like anyone else. She just had something else happen to her after the fact. 

They went their separate ways when the bell rang across campus to signal the end of break. Jinsol regretted waking Yerim up from her slumber, but it was time for ability training. Jinsol’s hall was on the opposite side of campus, so Jungeun half-lead, half-dragged Yerim towards their halls, which happened to be located right next to one another. By the time they stood before the purple and red buildings, Yerim’s eyes were wide open, and her energy had been restored. Jungeun waved Yerim off before filing into the Red Hall like all the other Reds, and like all the other students, entered the designated warp space. 

Since Yerim was an ASJ, she was one of the students picked at random to warp everyone to their training ground. Luckily it wasn’t her today though, so she was able to rest her eyes for a few more moments before ability training began. 

Being one of the ASJs in the room had its perks when warping. For one, Yerim could feel when the warping began and ended, and when they had landed, she immediately opened her eyes and looked down at her previously-white uniform.  _ So Team Iris, huh? That means only two teams today,  _ she thought before glancing around, nearly gasping when she realized she was surrounded by Violets. Yerim spotted a clump of Iris somewhere to her left and warped there to join them. She noticed upon landing that they were a group of Purples who weren’t very fond of her, and in turn, Yerim wasn’t very fond of them. But they held their tongues and began strategizing since working together was better than getting yelled at or punished by their head instructor. 

Yerim relatively had the same role whenever she was placed on a team, and it was to keep track of as many team members as possible. RSJs had the role of tagging out the opposite team, while ASJs had the role of moving groups of people to and from places to better place themselves and create windows of opportunity to take out as many of the opposite team’s ASJs as possible. But since Yerim was a DSJ, she had a more taxing role that involved both trying to tag out as many of the opposite team members as she could, while also keeping track of her teammates to warp them to opponents she believed to be ASJs. The space they utilized was near infinite, and it was in situations like these where Yerim sometimes wishes she was a Red. 

She felt a warp form behind her and immediately turned around to warp behind the aggressor and tag them out. It was then that she felt more warps forming around her, and knowing she was outnumbered, scanned the area for a group of Irises to warp towards. Some RSJs noticed her being cornered and warped to where she landed. When they were in her range, she closed her eyes to warp them on top of the opposing RSJs, and they collectively tagged out most of their opponents in that section, though some managed to escape to a larger group of Violets. 

Their surroundings suddenly turned white and they all groaned as they shut their eyes because of how intense it was.  _ Damn, I didn’t realize half of us were already out,  _ Yerim cursed to herself before attempting to sense any warps. She felt the RSJs on her team get closer to her, some even grabbing onto her to make sure they were all warped. Yerim quickly tried to reimagine their previously dark space in her mind, but was interrupted when she felt a warp open beside them. She warped her team members to the side before once again attempting to reimagine their room, but warps kept opening up around her, disturbing her. She couldn’t even feel any friendly ASJs, and when she realized she was the only one left, Yerim sighed, and gave in. There was no way they’d win if she was the only ASJ left on their team. 

In seconds, the entire group she was with was tagged out, and they were all warped back to the Purple Hall. She opened her eyes again and saw Purples--Violets--celebrating their victory today. Yerim zoned out the united groans of other Purples--Irises--and scanned today’s match data on her echO. She was right to realize she was the last ASJ, and saw that Violets still had over forty members on their team surviving. Yerim couldn’t be certain, but she felt less than twenty members within the group she was warping. There was no way they would’ve won, not with their RSJs completely blind and only a single ASJ. 

Yerim sulked on her way out of the hall, finding Jungeun and slumping against the older girl as she whined about her loss. Jungeun just responded saying that she wasn’t able to beat her record today, which didn’t help at all since Jungeun had one of the best records in Bureau history. Jinsol was there to console her though when they finally met with the Blue, with the taller saying that she had also lost today. There were very few Blues who could beat Jinsol, so it was just one of those days when Jinsol was paired with a stronger Blue. She still proved to be a strong Blue though and was one of the most reliable at the Bureau, if the constant requests for her presence on missions was anything to go by. 

The trio were some of the most talented recruits under the Bureau. Though other individuals outranked them in some areas, the trio were the best official team. They brought back the most consistent results and have yet to fail an assigned mission since they were officially instated. It made them the target of envy from other larger teams, as well as inspiration from new recruits or other small teams. They didn’t mind though, because no matter how others saw them when they dragged their feet to the floor manager to receive a lecture out in the hall about getting the bathroom door locked again, they knew how they were in each others’ eyes as they bid each other goodnight and fell asleep with smiles on their faces, already prepared to face the next morning. It didn’t matter what they faced, as long as they were together. 

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

Haseul awoke that morning feeling very unrested. She doesn’t recall doing anything the day before, but something told her that today would be taxing, and her body was already shouldering the burden. She groaned and turned over, not surprised when her bedmate was absent, with their side of the bed made as much as it could be without disturbing Haseul. The short haired woman turned the other way to slap her hand on her bedside desk before groaning loudly when her comm illuminated and blinded her. A giggle came from the direction of the door. 

“It’s 9:50 in the morning, Haseul,” she hears Kahei say softly. Haseul’s nose was filled with the comforting smell of caffeine, and her body rose on its own to receive her familiar green mug. She made sure the handle was by her right hand and not her left, as one side of the mug had a chip in it. Kahei had dropped the mug on accident during the first week she began staying with Haseul and Yeojin, and even though she insisted on buying Haseul a brand new one, Haseul managed to keep Kahei from running out of their dorm. 

“You’re awake, finally!” Haseul hears Yeojin from just outside the room. She had managed to take a long sip of her coffee, and it woke her enough to acknowledge the younger girl. “The heck did you do last night?” though Haseul wasn’t awake enough to notice the smirk on Yeojin’s lips. 

“I have no idea, honestly,” Haseul rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. 

“You fell asleep with a glass of whiskey in your hand,” Kahei says nonchalantly. 

“Really?” Yeojin screeched. “Hah! I can’t wait to tell Heejin and Hyunjin. Oh! Can I go out with them today? Hyunjin’s taking Heejin to the Graveyard, and they invited me to go,” she said with a wide smile, excited about going to a place she hasn’t been before. 

“I guess… Make sure you stay right next to Hyunjin though, okay? Not even Heejin’s been there before,” Haseul had been saying. 

“Technically she has,” Kahei then interrupts. Haseul just nodded, her head moving back and forth, juggling the responses. 

“ _ Technically _ , but what I mean is that she won’t know her way around,” she said more towards Kahei before turning her attention back to Yeojin. “Anyway, I don’t think the comms work down there either,” Haseul said, brows furrowed. She doesn’t know anyone besides Hyunjin who  _ knows  _ the Graveyard, and though she trusts the younger girl with her whole heart, she can’t help but worry. “So just be careful, okay?” 

“‘Kay! Bye!” Yeojin yells before thumping through the dorm and slamming the front door shut. Haseul winced as the room shook from the impact, but Kahei just blinked. The older then moved to the comm at Haseul’s desk and clicked it again, once again illuminating it. Haseul squinted at the harsh light radiating from it, but immediately shuts her eyes when she sees Kahei tapping through the options to brighten the windows. Haseul could feel on the other side of her eyelids the sunlight seeping into their room and would have thrown herself under the covers if it weren’t for the mug of coffee in her hands. She sighed before facing Kahei after an excruciating time in opening her eyes. 

“Did I really drink myself to sleep last night?” Haseul says while rubbing her forehead. “I don’t feel hungover,” she says, confused. 

“No, you didn’t,” Kahei says with a straight face. 

“Wait, what?” Haseul asked, now even more confused. “But didn’t you-” 

“Yeojin was teaching me about jokes this morning,” Kahei said, tilting her head.  _ Ah,  _ Haseul thought to herself. “And she told me that telling you that you fell asleep with a glass of whiskey in your hand would be funny,” she tilts her head the other way. “Was it not funny?” she looked so innocent that Haseul couldn’t saying anything against her. 

“No, no, it was funny, Kahei,” Haseul says, smiling a bit as the other girl also smiles. If Haseul was grateful for anything when taking in Kahei, it was how she was able to see the older girl grow as a person. If she didn’t know any better, Haseul would have thought that she was older, so it was strange to see that Kahei was two years older than she was when they managed to get their hands on Kahei’s birth file. 

“Anything planned for today?” Kahei asks. Haseul takes her comm off the desk to scroll through it, shrugging when she finds nothing. 

“Not really. HQ hasn’t sent me any notices these past few days, and I also haven’t gotten any messages today,” she takes the ring-shaped device and slips it around her ear before clipping it into place. She hears the familiar tone of her comm syncing with her chip, and she waits a few seconds for everything to get into place. Her tabs began floating into place, and when another familiar ding resounds, she begins to get off the bed. “Well, then I guess we can go out today,” Haseul says before moving towards her closet, swiping her hand on her way so that it was opened by the time she gets close enough to start shuffling through her wardrobe. 

"Where would we go today?" Kahei asks."We went to the market three days ago, which means that we are good on groceries. You told Yeojin that she did not need to buy that orange sweater with the frog on it when we went to the outlet last week, which means no one needs new clothes yet. We also don't need to pay rent for your dorm room, so we don't need to worry about that," Kahei finishes, looking confused. "What else do we need to go out for?" 

"Well, we can just go out for fun. You know, like the younger girls are doing," Haseul tried. Despite the fact that she's known Kahei for five years, Haseul realizes that she hasn't taught the woman much about fun and leisure. They had been more busy before since Heejin and Hyunjin hadn’t been old enough to go on some missions with them in the beginning, and barely a year after they were old enough to go on any mission, they had added Yeojin to the squad. Yeojin is still young though, but Haseul had been able to get HQ to lower the age requirement for Yeojin since she and Yeojin have been with this branch for so long. With the five of them now working, as well as less jobs since they had climbed the ranks to the top, there was less to do. It’s only been a few weeks since their last big mission, and Kahei hasn’t had the time to figure out what fun and leisure are since Haseul was always out finishing reports and delivering lectures, Heejin was at Galas or giving speeches, Hyunjin was working on anything HQ thought needed special care, and Yeojin was taking courses to make up for the time she missed on missions. 

“But Hyunjin had said that she wanted to go to the Graveyard for parts,” Kahei says. “Is going out for parts fun?” she asks, her tone full of genuine curiosity. 

“Maybe it is for Hyunjin,” Haseul shrugs before turning back to her closet. “Anyway, forget about them. I should take you out to the track or something,” she says before checking her calendar, summoning it with her mind. It was full of different colored dots because she had to take care of her squad'sjobs at the agency (especially Hyunjin’s and Yeojin’s), but also with entertainment. Haseul knew first hand the chaos the Jins would cause if she didn’t fill their days with something to keep them occupied. She really didn’t want to have to deal with an anxiety-filled Heejin, prankster Hyunjin, or lost Yeojin, especially not all at the same time. 

“For what?” Kahei says after nodding and mirroring Haseul in front of her own closet. 

“There’s an Eclipse competition today, and it’s been a while since I’ve gone to a physical site to watch one. It’ll be fun,” Haseul says with a smile, trying to encourage the older woman. She decided to wear her green crop top, the nylon fitting to her body shape she slips it over her head. Her nanobite leggings were yelling at her as well, reminding her of the strange headache she got this morning. Something told her she wouldn’t have a quiet day today, so she also decides to throw on her black nanobite jacket. She moved to her cabinet to retrieve four nanobite canisters and attached them to the inside of her jacket, moving out of the room when the nanobites held snugly onto each other. 

Kahei had finished sometime before she did and was already out in the living room. She had been doing something with the mechanics in her arm before quickly hiding it when she notices Haseul. The short haired woman frowns. 

"Kahei, I told you it was okay. I really don't mind. You see me help Hyunjin sometimes when Heejin isn’t around and she has to work on her back. I have no problem with you working on yourself," Haseul says firmly. Kahei searches her eyes for a moment before nodding silently and continuing where she left off. It saddened Haseul to see how Kahei still hide herself despite them knowing one another for so long. Hyunjin managed to get comfortable after her… fight with Heejin. Haseul hates that the two of them had to get to that point, but they came out of it stronger, so Haseul was grateful for that. 

Haseul and Kahei were at the door now, ready to leave, when Kahei gets a call. It wasn’t on her comm though, so Kahei gave Haseul a look before lifting her hand. Her palm glowed a faint pink before Hyunjin’s appeared. Hyunjin must have synced her and Kahei’s tech to bypass even the dead zone that surrounds the Graveyard. Upon connection, Haseul immediately frowned. 

For one, Heejin was pacing back and forth in the background murmuring to herself about something.  _ Great _ , her day just started and Haseul’s already got to deal with an anxiety-filled Heejin. 

_ “Hey, Kahei-unnie! Um, is Haseul-unnie there?” _ she asks while sparing Heejin a glance as the shorter of the two continues to pace in the background. 

“Yeah, I’m right here, Hyunjin. What’s up?” 

_ “Um, we may have run into a bit of a problem,” _ she says vaguely. 

“And that is? C’mon Hyunjin, for an engineer, you’re pretty light on the details,” Haseul teased. 

_ “Haha,” _ Hyunjin laughs dryly.  _ “Well, you see, we kind of lost Yeojin?” _ Haseul hears Heejin yell,  _ “Kind of?” _ before groaning loudly. Haseul mirrored Heejin in her head. Now she has to deal with a lost Yeojin. 

“Well, I’m sure you know your way around enough to find her, right? Or can’t you put together or summon a drone really quick to scan the area?” Kahei was looking off into the distance, but the faint pink from her eye told Haseul that she was in the middle of doing something. She’d ask about it after. 

_ “Yeah, well, that’s the problem,”  _ Hyunjin hesitates, staring blankly at Haseul. The older woman gestures her to continue, knowing full well that the younger wouldn’t otherwise.  _ “Well, Yeojin just… she’s not here,” _ Hyunjin finishes. Vaguely. 

“Obviously she’s not there with you if she’s lost, Hyunjin. Again, elaborate. Did she leave your general area? Did she leave the Graveyard? Did she leave the slums? Come on, give me something to work with here, Hyunjin,” Haseul questions rapidly. She was just about to leave to enjoy an Eclipse competition. She didn’t need to be going in circles with Hyunjin right now. 

_ “Okay, well, you see-” _

“Yeojin is on the planet Eden,” Kahei cuts in, her eye no longer pink as she now is facing Haseul. 

“I’m sorry, what?” 

_ “Yeah, we kinda-sorta-maybe came across a broken warp portal, and I kinda-sorta-maybe forgot to explicitly tell Yeojin not to go near it since the coordinator and scanner were malfunctioning, and it kinda-sorta-maybe could quite literally send anyone near it to any planet registered on the portal,”  _ Hyunjin now explains in full. 

Hyunjin was watching her expectantly, gauging her response. 

Heejin was no longer pacing and was looking at her nervously from behind Hyunjin’s shoulder. 

Kahei’s expression was blank, likely waiting for instructions. 

Haseul closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. 

At least she didn’t have to deal with prankster Hyunjin today. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if isn't obvious already, yyxy are wolves, more or less (I'll elaborate more soon). There are and will be many inconsistencies with real wolves in the wild, but it will be explained as it goes on. 
> 
> Again, this is just the intro/prologue to see if this concept would be interesting. I’m not entirely sure where I want to go from here, but I have an idea. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. New

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been... a while. 
> 
> Minor changes in the way some things are referred to (ie. changing team to squad), but otherwise, nothing major. 
> 
> Not proofread. 
> 
> Archive warnings are subject to change.
> 
> Happy reading!

“Oh man, oh man, oh man,” Yeojin begins saying as she looks around to see barren land. There isn’t a single thing in sight that she recognizes. Even the sky looked different! Yeojin brought her wrist up to try and click through her comm’s navigation system. Nothing. She took it from its watch form and brought it up to her head, slipping the ring around her ear and clicking it in place. Nothing. She took it back off and tossed it on the ground, hoping  _ anything  _ would come up around the indicator that represented the device. Nothing. She groaned in frustration before swiping the useless object off the ground and slipping it on her wrist again. It at least changed forms still, so the nanobits were still functional. Hopefully it’d come in handy later. 

“Oh man, oh man, oh- Wait…” Yeojin looks around and realizes once again that there isn’t a single thing in sight that she recognizes. There isn’t a single person in sight that she recognizes. That means there wasn’t a soul who could tell her what to do now! 

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Yeojin then began saying as she paced around in what appeared to be… dirt? Did she get teleported to the past? She’s only ever seen real dirt once, and it was in a science class during general education. Their professor passed around a small jar of dirt, and Yeojin remembers how excited the whole class was. Now she’s completely surrounded by dirt! Despite her unusual circumstances, Yeojin decided she’d take her sister’s advice for once: Calm down, and take things one step at a time. So Yeojin does the first thing she is familiar with: Take a sample! 

Yeojin (gently) throws her old, orange backpack onto the ground and began digging through its contents to retrieve disposable gloves, an empty container, and a clear bag. She wasn’t quite sure what she’d do with the dirt since she didn’t know how to use any of the biology equipment back at home, but Heejin could! She also didn’t know what bringing dirt back home would achieve, but she’d do it anyway! Hyunjin always told her that any opportunity was worth taking, after all! She made sure to bring an ample amount since dirt was so scarce back home. Maybe Heejin knew how to grow a real plant… 

Proud of her get, Yeojin (gently) swings her backpack on, tightened the loose straps, and scanned her surroundings. She was placed in a field of what appeared to be dirt and grass and was blocked in on three sides by a cliff, a steep hillside, and… wait, what are those? Yeojin furrowed her brows as the things before her began moving closer while, growling all the while. She instinctively began moving back slowly, not sure what these things were, but afraid all the same for reasons she wasn’t quite sure of yet. Then one of them raises its head towards the bright blue sky--Also, were those clouds? Yeojin certainly must have teleported to the past!--and makes a noise Yeojin has only ever heard of when watching old movies with Haseul: howling. 

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Yeojin turned and began sprinting across the field of dirt as they all howled in unison and gave chase. “Why the fuck did it have to be werewolves?!” she screamed into the empty air. She thumped down the hill and nearly fell when her knees almost collapsed at the sudden flatness of the ground after descending so fast. She allowed herself one look back and swore her heart skipped a beat at the sight of the werewolves hitting the ground with their claws at her heels. Yeojin wondered for a moment why these werewolves were quadruped, but her life was at stake right now, and she decided that she could have this conversation with herself when she makes it out alive. Well,  _ if  _ she makes it out alive. 

Looking over her shoulder at the gleaming teeth and sharp claws on the large bodies that were barreling towards her took her attention off of what was in front of her, and she yelped when her foot came into contact with something on the ground, and she fell over. Yeojin felt the unfamiliar feeling of scrapes on her palms and chin and teared up when she presses her hands into the uneven ground to try and get up. Yeojin vividly recalls getting bruises of all kinds when working with zero gravity as she has yet to master emergency procedures when abroad the Craft, but she does not remember getting cuts or scratches her entire life. Her fingers get cold at the slightest sight of blood dripping from her chin, but it wouldn’t ever compare to how quickly her body freezes when she feels a hot breath against the top of her head. 

Yeojin begins to shake as she feels how close at least one of the werewolves is. She felt mildly perturbed as its nose trails from her head down to her toes, hovering over parts she doesn’t let anyone near, but more than anything, she fears for her life because she's seen how gruesome these things can be. Movies or not, there had to be some semblance of reality, and if the werewolves in film are anything like the ones in real life--because Yeojin refuses to believe all werewolves are actually shirtless men who will fight for your love--then Yeojin braces herself for anything to come. She expected to be bit into, scratched at, torn apart, bleeding out… she could only imagine the worst. But she jumped in fright (if that was even possible) when a howl sounded across the field. It didn’t sound to be right on top of her though, and when she feels the hot body previously hovering over her move away, Yeojin allows her eyes to open to peek at what was going on. 

She gasps when more werewolves were coming towards her. What if they were all friends and were ready to share her as a meal?! Surely she was too small to be shared by this many hungry werewolves! The slight panic disappeared though when she realizes that these ones didn’t seem to want to eat her. She got a different feeling from these werewolves, especially when the group previously pursuing her backed off a considerable distance. Yeojin now felt that she wouldn’t immediately get pounced on, and that was a relief. 

Unintelligible sounds came from one of the newer werewolves. Yeojin could see its mouth moving, but the words that came out of it were completely different. Yeojin should have expected much from these different creatures. As the werewolf continued saying something to her, Yeojin remembered that Haseul had installed a translation package onto her comm in the past. She wasn’t sure if it covered past-Earth (if this even was past-Earth), but it never hurt to try. She removed the device from her wrist again and watched it transform into its ring-form. She then slipped it around her ear, clicked it into place, and navigated to the translation package. As none of the werewolves were circling her, looking ready to eat her, Yeojin patiently waited for whatever was leaving the werewolf’s mouth to become intelligible in her ears. Surprisingly, it worked. Haseul must have recruited the help of Heejin and Hyunjin. 

“You okay?” she finally understands, though the sudden voice caused her to jump. She kicked her feet uselessly in the dirt in an attempt to move away, but quickly took reign of her instincts and managed to stay put. “Don’t worry about us, we’re not here to eat you,” the werewolf said. It had a reddish coat, making it quite easy to spot out of the rest of them. Yeojin swore she saw the upturn of a smile, though she wouldn’t be sure. All but two of the werewolves from the new group moved between her and the other group, while the remaining two stood on the opposite side of Yeojin, keeping watch at the back. 

“What are you doing here?” the smallest werewolf asked Yeojin’s pursuers. 

“What does it look like? That thing is our prey today,” the one who appeared to be the leader sneered. 

“This is our territory though. You hunting on our grounds is inciting a challenge,” the werewolf with a reddish coat said back. 

“What are we supposed to be? Stop giving chase the moment any of our prey crosses into the Flatlands?” one of them got aggressive, taking a step towards the new group. The smallest wolf stepped forward to challenge, baring teeth, but another stopped them. They held their ground though, ready to pounce at any moment’s notice. 

“This is our territory. I don’t care what you do with your prey, but if I catch you here again, I will not hesitate to drive you into the Cauldron and make sure you never step foot on this mountain again,” the reddish one says. This one appeared to be much more relaxed than the other werewolves, and Yeojin was a tad confused when her pursuers turned away without another word. Was it really that easy? This new group had less werewolves than her pursuers, and Yeojin would think numbers would have sealed the deal. 

When her pursuers disappeared over the hill Yeojin had just sprinted over, this group visibly relaxed. The reddish one simply smiled as if to say, “I told you so.” The reddish one then turned to Yeojin, and she froze again at the proximity. 

“You okay?” they asked again, but Yeojin couldn’t tear her eyes away from those canines. 

“Are you gonna eat me now ‘cause I’m in your territory?” she says barely above a whisper. The werewolf’s head turns in confusion, and in that moment, Yeojin realizes that without its own translator, Yeojin wouldn’t be able to communicate with it. She slowly reaches into her backpack, afraid of alarming any of the werewolves, but as the reddish one sits patiently, the others begin to sit or lie down. Yeojin proceeds with her eyes flitting constantly to the werewolves around her, using solely her sense of touch to feel for one of her spare comms. Upon finding one, she whips it out quickly and begins fiddling with it in the hopes that it still worked. When it droned awake, Yeojin looks expectantly at the werewolf. Its ears perk forward now that Yeojin’s attention had returned to it, and it looked at the comm in her hands with interest. Knowing it doesn’t understand her, Yeojin shows the comm to the werewolf and holds it near her ear. The werewolf quickly understood and leaned its head forward for Yeojin. With shaking hands, Yeojin slips the ring around one of the triangle ears and clips it into place. The werewolf growls slightly, its teeth peeking, but only for a moment before the werewolf shakes its head as if testing to see if the foreign object would fall off. 

“Interesting…” it says with its eyes turned upwards. 

“I hope it works…” Yeojin says. The werewolf turns to her then, acknowledgement shining in its eyes.  _ I guess it did work _ , Yeojin thinks. 

“What is this?” they ask. 

“A spare comm. It has very few features though. Luckily the translator is an active feature,” Yeojin murmurs, unsure how to deal with her situation. Her eyes constantly catch the gleam of teeth and claws, and even though there isn’t any aggression from this group of werewolves, Yeojin can’t help but feel that her life is in danger. 

“Never seen one before. Say, where are you from?” it leans forward to sniff Yeojin’s head and the latter flinches at the close proximity. “You don’t smell like a non.” 

“E-earth,” she says, her breath catching in her throat. 

“Earth?” it questions strangely. Yeojin couldn’t be sure, but it looked troubled at the mention of her home planet. 

“Where the heck is that?” the smallest werewolf asks. 

“Why don’t we introduce ourselves first,” the reddish ones suggests. The others look to one another before a collective nod of agreement sweeps the group. “Since you obviously aren’t a shifter, this form would probably be more familiar to you,” it says before the reddish fur on their body begins to reseed, the claws begin turning into small, familiar appendages, and the teeth-filled jaw becomes a face full of features Yeojin is used to seeing everyday. Their hair is red, and Yeojin figures that was why their fur was a similar color. 

“What the-” Yeojin starts before her eyes trail down to see their--well, her--bare body. “What the-!” she slaps her hands over her eyes, trying desperately to erase the image from her brain. “Oh my goodness! Don’t you werewolves have clothes?!” 

“We never shift into these bodies, so none of us care to have any,” she chuckles. “My name is Minji, by the way, and this is my pack,” Yeojin peeks through her fingers to see Minji waving a hand towards the others who were still in their wolf forms.

“I’m Yeojin,” she says softly. 

“Yeojin, alright. Also, werewolves?” she asks with an amused look. 

“Aren’t you guys werewolves?” Minji glances towards one of her pack. 

“Gahyeon, what’s a werewolf?” 

“It’s some human lore of a wolf-man hybrid. Basically us, but on two legs when shifted,” Gahyeon explains. 

“And Earth is?” Minji continues. 

“It’s a planet inhabited solely by humans--think of a planet of only nons--that’s about eleven billion light years away from us,” she (Yeojin presumes) says. 

“What’s a light year?” 

“A light year is the astronomical distance equivalent to-” 

“In layman’s terms, please.” 

“It’s… extremely far away,” Gahyeon says after a moment of thought. 

“Alright then,” Minji says with a huff. “What are we going to do with you then?” she turns back to Yeojin before tilting her head in thought. Yeojin notices Minji's arms were crossed over her chest now, and if it was to cover herself up a bit, Yeojin was thankful. 

“Why don’t we take her to Sooyoung?” the small not-werewolf suggests. “She seems to take a liking to strays,” they tease. Minji sends her a disapproving look nodding in consideration. 

“Well, Sooyoung isn’t too far from here so it won’t be too much trouble,” she then turns back to Yeojin. “I’d be happy to have you accompany us to figure out how you got here, but from our knowledge, human bodies are a lot more annoying to take care of, and we don’t need you dying on us,” she says with a smile, but Yeojin can only chuckle awkwardly. “Sooyoung is a friend of mine who rarely moves from her central den, so I think it’d be best for you to be with her for the time being,” Minji says before shifting back into her not-werewolf form. 

“Okay, thank you,” Yeojin mumbles, slightly unsure whether this was the best decision to make. At least it was better than dying alone, right? She couldn’t count on another nice group of not-werewolves to come and protect her like this group. 

“Oh, by the way,” Minji says, getting Yeojin’s attention. “We’re just wolves. We’re actually shifters though, if you want to be exact,” Minji says before walking off. The rest of her group--or, pack--follows, so Yeojin does as well. 

Yeojin wasn’t sure what meeting Sooyoung would bring, but she was certain about one thing: This is not the Earth of the past. 

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

The trek to Sooyoung was rather uneventful. Yeojin was allowed to ride on the back of another wolf--or shifter, she should probably refer to them as--named Yoohyeon. Yoohyeon was just slightly larger than Minji, Yeojin realized, but the larger shifter still followed Minji. She figures Minji is the leader, but why? 

Being able to catch a ride on Yoohyeon’s back allowed the pack to trot along at a steady pace for far longer than Yeojin thinks she has ever travelled on foot in her life. She feels pity for these poor shifters. They don’t have any vehicles like the Eclipses of Hovercrafts she has back home. She can’t drive them yet, but they still exist! And they are very convenient! 

Yeojin notices that the sun was beginning to set even though they started their journey with it high in the sky. Yeojin had managed to get by on emergency rations in her backpack, but the shifters didn’t stop once for a break or for food. Yeojin thought about how amazing it was for these creatures to be able to travel such long distances without needing breaks, and it was then that she understood that the human body was very inferior to the bodies of wolves. They had travelled mostly through flat terrain, but as they began an ascent up a hill, they entered a thick forest. Yeojin had to duck several times to avoid branches just low enough to smack her in the face, and she constantly had to tell Yoohyeon it was okay when the shifter apologized everytime Yeojin moved too much on her back. 

It was nearly dark by the time they reached a rock-like structure. The entire pack stopped a good distance away, but Minji continued on. She made a howl-like sound as she neared the entrance to what appeared to be a cave, and Yeojin watches with squinted eyes as a dark shape exits the cave, and despite the shade, its gray eyes pierced through the darkening sky. It was about the same height as Minji was, but it looked stronger, firmer. Yeojin couldn’t quite see, but the way it held itself was different than Minji. 

“Minji?” another voice comes from the cave and out comes a white-coated shifter. Yoohyeon grumbled lowly when Minji and the new shifter jump at the sight of one another, their large heads rubbing against each other. Yeojin didn’t have any sort of experience with wolves, but there was clear joy. 

“Leave them alone,” Handong, another of Minji's pack, says teasingly towards Yoohyeon who just grumbles again. The white shifter seemed to hear Yoohyeon because they separate themselves with Minji with a low chuckle. 

“Come now, Yoohyeon, I’m not here to steal your mate or anything,” they say before licking Minji's muzzle once before chuckling again. Minji's pack were amused at Yoohyeon’s sulking, and it was among the laughs and teases that Yeojin feels eyes on her. She peeks up to meet piercing burgundy, and Yeojin freezes. Her stiffness must have been felt because Yoohyeon turns her head up towards Yeojin. 

“Sooyoung, you’re gonna scare her,” Minji says while bumping into the white shifter’s side. 

“You brought a foreigner into my space, I’m going to be threatening,” they say offhandedly. Two more shifters make themselves known, and all eyes are now on Yeojin. 

“Is that a human?” a reddish shifter asks. 

“Yup,” Minji says. “Yeojin, this,” she nips at the side of the white shifter’s neck. “Is Sooyoung,” she giggles when Sooyoung sends her a glare, clearly not afraid of any kind of retaliation. “And this is her pack,” Minji gestures to the other three shifters. Yeojin notices right away that Sooyoung’s pack was quite small in numbers, but they didn’t seem weak at all. 

Sooyoung, their pack leader, was relatively the same size as Minji. Their bodies masses were similar as well, but Sooyoung looked more threatening for some reason. Maybe it was the existence of the limp, which should appear as a weakness, but instead made Sooyoung appear like a battle-torn warrior. Jiwoo was smaller than Sooyoung and radiated a different kind of energy. Her coat was also reddish in color, and despite her friendlier disposition, she still looked very firm in her stance. Chaewon was the smallest of them all with a platinum-like coat. Her energy was also different, and although she didn’t physically appear threatening, there was something in her eyes that scared Yeojin. She didn’t want to cross the small shifter in case she unleashed something… And then there was Hyejoo. In terms of height, she was smaller than Yoohyeon, but she appeared much stronger. It was getting dark out so Yeojin couldn’t see very well as Hyejoo also had a dark coat, but something about her stance radiated strength. Yeojin wasn’t sure who she should fear more, but Minji said she would be fine with these shifters. She shouldn’t fear any of them. 

“We’re about to make our winterly journey to the Tail, and we needed someone to look after Yeojin,” Minji explains. 

“Why us?” Sooyoung asks. 

“Well, you rarely stray from your central den,” Minji starts, but Sooyoung’s eyebrow quirks. 

“Minji, Jiwoo and Hyejoo travel to Cape Diamond once a moon, and I can’t have her,” Sooyoung gestures to Yeojin. “Here with Chaewon and me. And you know how bad the winters can get up North.” 

“Yeah, but it’s better than taking Yeojin with us through the Cauldron,” that shut Sooyoung up, and she sighs heavily. 

“We can’t have that, can we?” she mutters softly. 

“No, no we can’t,” Minji says just as softly. There was silence among the two packs, and though Yeojin wasn’t sure what was going on, she knew not to speak. There was some kind of universal understanding to not speak of whatever was in the Cauldron, and it made Yeojin wonder what was there. 

“Alright, fine. I guess she can stay,” Minji appears to smile, and she leans against Sooyoung. Their heads came around to lay on the other’s backs, and it looked like they were hugging. 

“Thanks, Soo. Don’t worry, we and Gahyeon will be sure to brainstorm on the way there and back!” Minji leans towards Yeojin then. “You should probably keep this translator thing for Sooyoung,” Yeojin nods before carefully taking the object off. Minji turns with a smile to depart, but turns back suddenly to lick Sooyoung’s muzzle before running off. Yoohyeon waits patiently as Yeojin unmounts her before smiling and following her retreating pack. She catches up to Minji to bump harshly against the leader. Yeojin can’t help but find it amusing, but when they disappear through the forest, Yeojin is suddenly aware of the fact that she is now alone with the new pack. She turns to expect them all eyes on her, but is only met with Jiwoo’s. 

Chaewon and Hyejoo were already in the cave, and Sooyoung was nowhere in sight. As Yeojin glances around to search for the white shifter, Jiwoo noses the comm in her hand. Jiwoo caught on fast, and Yeojin reaches over to slip the ring around Jiwoo’s ear to clip it in place. Jiwoo is all smiles it appears, and she gestures with her head for Yeojin to follow into the cave. Chaewon and Hyejoo are watching her with interest, but neither make a move to approach her as Yeojin sits herself several feet away from them. 

“Do you have more of these things?” Jiwoo asks. Yeojin nods before digging through her pack again. Yeojin always had four extra comms, each for one of her team members. It was perfect that Sooyoung’s pack had four shifters in it. As the two other shifters didn’t appear to want to move, Yeojin made an effort to scoot over herself. She reached over to Hyejoo first and held back a squeal when Hyejoo’s ear flicks at the light contact of Yeojin’s finger. Yeojin moves to slip the ring around Hyejoo’s ear, and when it clips, Hyejoo growls lowly. No aggression though, so all seemed fine. When she slipped the ring around Chaewon’s ear and it clipped, Chaewon let out a groan. Hyejoo growled loudly though, teeth baring for a moment, before retreating. Yeojin thought about how strange it was for Hyejoo to show aggression only now. 

Yeojin was slowly scooting back to her original spot when she hears wood knocking against one another. She turns to see a (naked) Sooyoung standing over a pile of wood, and Yeojin wonder when Sooyoung had returned. With two objects Jiwoo brings over to Sooyoung, the leader of the pack manages to create a fire. Yeojin watches in awe as the fire is brought to life, and is immediately drawn to it when a breeze creeps down her neck. She catches Sooyoung’s eyes, and Sooyoung gestures Yeojin to move closer to the radiating warmth. Yeojin crawls over to the fire, and when she is near, Sooyoung turns her head and taps her ear once. Yeojin scrambles for her remaining comm and reaches over to the human ear to clip the comm in place. Sooyoung didn’t appear fazed, and if it did hurt, she hid it well. 

Yeojin then couldn’t help but stare at the ugly scar on Sooyoung’s left forearm. This is probably how the limp in her wolf form translated onto her human body, and it was not a pretty sight. Yeojin then couldn’t help but spot other imperfections along Sooyoung’s bare skin, but the shifter quickly shifted into her wolf form, and curled in on herself, effectively hiding any and all imperfections under her coat. She was facing the entrance of the cave on her stomach, as if ready to get up if needed. Yeojin turned to see Chaewon and Hyejoo looking quite relaxed. How carefree. 

"Here," Yeojin hears Jiwoo. The shifter was in her human form now, and even had clothes on. Yeojin's eyes scanned the cave to spot a pile of clothes, blankets, and even pillows. Despite them being in a cave, they looked brand new, almost untouched. "I don't know what you have in that bag of yours, but just in case," she says. Yeojin takes the offered blanket with a nod and watches as Jiwoo goes to face a wall. She was about undress when she paused and looked at Sooyoung. With a smirk, she fixes her clothes again and goes to sit beside Sooyoung. She practically free falls onto the other shifter's back, and Yeojin wonders if it hurt at all. There was a low groan from Sooyoung, but all the shifter did was turn on her side so Jiwoo was laying against her side and not on her spine. 

No aggression from arguably the most threatening of the four shifters here. Maybe they weren't so bad after all. 

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

"Choi Yerim!" a voice rang out across the center. They were in the middle of RSJ training when the headmaster called for the DSJ. She warped right over and was followed closely by Jungeun and Jinsol. 

"Headmaster," Jungeun says before bowing her head just enough to show respect. Knowing why the headmaster was here, Jinsol and Yerim followed and stood in line to receive their assignment. 

"Good that you're all here. In about four days time, I will call you two," she points to Jungeun and Jinsol. "To brief the mission. Yerim, you're coming with me now."

"May I ask why?" Jungeun steps in. She doesn't recall a time when Yerim had to prepare for this long. 

"You're going to be sent to the planet Eden for your mission," she says shortly. 

"Isn't that like… twelve billion light years away?" Yerim asks softly with worry clear on her face. 

"Indeed it is, and this is why you're starting now." 

"Wait, has there ever been an ASJ to travel that far?" Jinsol asks incredulously. 

"Why, yes, there was-" 

"And survived the strain of the warp, headmaster," Jinsol cuts her off. It was Bureau policy that no ASJ was made to travel more than five billion light years at a time when travelling with one other. Any further distance, or any bigger team called for a joint mission with at least two teams or several ASJs. They only had Yerim. "Having Yerim start this early means you're not thinking of having another team come with us." Yerim's eyes were wide in shock at the announcement, and her fingers began tangling themselves together in worry. Jinsol instinctively reached down to grab Yerim's hands and tugged the younger girl half a step behind her. 

"Headmaster, what is the meaning of this?" Jungeun demands. "I understand that Yerim is a powerful ASJ, but everyone has a limit. With all due respect, I would prefer you not send my teammate to perform this task," Jungeun said firmly. 

"I'm going to be honest with you, Jungeun, okay? The board has unanimously agreed that sending you three on what can be seen as a suicide mission is the best option for us." 

"Excuse me? Suicide mission?" 

"The mission consists of you reclaiming an Earthian who stupidly teleported themselves to a planet previously in conflict over the superiority of human beings and the human body. As I'm sure you are plenty aware, Jungeun, the appearance of a human will reignite one side of that war, and the planet will be thrown into disarray once again." 

"And what does that have to do with us? How is it our problem?" Jungeun demanded. It was bad enough that risking Yerim’s life was being contemplated, but for Eden? Why on Oec would they do anything for that planet?

"Because we've received insight that in the future, the side that wins will go on to attempt to take over not only their galaxy, but all others." 

"You don't even know if they'll succeed." 

"We've seen them take over three galaxies. Sure, the insight hasn't reached us yet, but it can happen, and we'd like to stop it before something begins." 

"If this mission is so vital, then why send just us?" 

"Because this mission requires a certain level of finesse that only a small team can achieve. And among the small teams registered, you are the only team the board has determined to be the only ones experienced and mature enough to take on a mission of this importance." 

"Then at least allow us to bring one other ASJ with us to help Yerim out and lessen the strain of jumping so far." 

"That is still six light years per ASJ, which you stated is outside of normal protocol. There is also the new burden of bringing along one more person, which steps even further away from normal protocol." 

"Headmaster, Yerim has only ever taken us seven light years, and it took her several weeks to recover from the jump." Jinsol tried. 

"And her trainers and the board believe she can achieve jumping the distance of twelve light years." 

"But-" 

"Don't fear, if something happens to Yerim, you two and her family will be heartily compensated," Yerim gasped then, but their headmaster didn't seem to care. 

"That's not-" 

"Jungeun, the board has already decided this unanimously. We need to start preparing as soon as possible if we are to get on this task. Come, Yerim." Yerim turned to them to smile brightly, but the tight grip she had on Jinsol's hand told them all they needed. 

“I guess I’ll see you two soon,” she murmurs before following their headmaster with her head down. Jungeun and Jinsol watched helplessly as the younger was taken for prep, and Jungeun yelled out a swear as Jinsol reprimanded herself for not trying more to protect Yerim (though deep down, she knew that she wouldn’t have been able to do anything). 

For the next four days, Jungeun and Jinsol trained relentlessly. Neither of them could do what Yerim was preparing to do, so all they could do to lessen the youngest's burden was perfect their own skills so that Yerim wouldn't have to exert herself any more than she already is going to. 

"You're not gonna kill any of them, are you?" Jinsol asks Jungeun knowingly when she finds the younger girl at the battle hall. 

"If one of them snaps their jaws at me, that jaw is going to go flying." 

"Jungeun, come on." 

"No, 'Sol. Those beasts took too much away from me. I never thought I’d ever go to Eden because of how far away it was. Now I have a chance, and if this chance permits me to do to those beasts what they did to me, then I will,” she says with anger evident in her eyes. “And besides, I also have to protect Yerim. If I have to, I’ll kill any one of them to keep her safe.” 

While Jinsol was perfecting her warping, Jungeun was perfecting her close combat skills. Jinsol knew she wouldn't be able to get Jungeun to stop overworking herself, but she could at least support her stubborn leader from the side. 

The day when they reunited with Yerim was approaching fast, and despite their physical preparedness for the mission, they weren't sure if they were mentally prepared for Yerim's physical health after the jump. 

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

Three days. Three whole days have passed, and Haseul has yet to receive confirmation to go to Eden and rescue Yeojin. They easily could have gone through the portal that Yeojin did, but travel by portal to anywhere outside of the Milky Way Galaxy was illegal since other galaxies have argued that since they don’t have the same portal system, they would feel like they are being invaded. The last thing that the Milky Way Council wanted was a war or bad relations, so they kept portal usage within the Galaxy. 

Oh, but the thought was so tempting. Hyunjin could easily program one of the more stable portals that are out in the Graveyard, and they’d be on Eden within seconds. But Haseul didn’t want to get in trouble with HQ for, one, travelling through a portal to a different galaxy, and two, going on a mission without clearance. And even more so, she didn’t want to ruin the reputations of her team members. She thought she could be patient in waiting for clearance, but that was until she had to wait for three days with nothing. She joined Heejin as the two paced worriedly, and in order to make it stop, Hyunjin took it upon herself to drag Heejin somewhere to keep her mind off of their current predicament. 

Hyunjin had taken Heejin to the smaller girl’s personal lab to try and get her to focus on something like her theories and experiments, but anything she started somehow led her back to Yeojin, and she was worried all over again. Hyunjin then tried to teach Heejin how to program nanobites to build on their own, but the smaller girl kept messing up the code and nothing would work. Heejin then was worried not only about Yeojin, but also herself, as she now pondered constantly about her death in which she perished terribly after being unable to program nanobites. Hyunjin finally resorted to taking Heejin out to the Graveyard, and Haseul has yet to get an update since. 

Kahei had gone and preoccupied herself with her old squadmates. If Haseul were to guess, the older woman was probably fighting it out with them at the gym. Haseul was then reminded that she needed to teach Kahei how to relieve stress in ways that didn’t involve violence. Not that the older woman got hurt often, but it was more of a precaution to prevent any could-bes. The last thing Haseul needed was her right-hand woman getting impaired in some way… Kahei was more than fine though, as rather than fighting it out like she normally did, she and her old squadmates decided that a simple gathering to catch up was more than enough. 

“Are they good to you?” Tingyan asks more to the group than anyone in particular. It had been a while since they had time to meet up since Tingyan and her squad had three back to back missions. With the girl usually being the one to call gatherings, her absence resulted in much time away. Though some of the others were on missions as well, Kahei knew that she could have easily met up with some of the remaining members of their old squad. 

“Yup!” Yuqi says, and Shuhua nods happily in agreement. “Soyeon is really cool! She’s done so many missions before! Even solo missions! She’s so reliable.” 

“Even Miyeon is reliable,” Shuhua quips. “Probably just ‘cause she’s old,” she teases despite the woman not being present. Yuqi shares a laugh as they began recalling a story of their clumsy squadmate. 

“That’s really good to hear,” Tingyan says despite knowing the younger two were already in their own world. “Kahei? I know you’ve known them for a long time, but I can’t remember the last time I asked you,” Tingyan admits shyly. Despite being off of Earth, their squad made sure to contact one another often. Tingyan, though, had gone radio silent for most of her time away. Kahei could assume what the reason was, but she kept her thoughts to herself. 

“Mhm. Haseul is really kind and helps me with pretty much everything. Yeojin gets into a lot of trouble. Heejin and Hyunjin get into trouble too, but they usually watch out for each other. Haseul says not to worry too much about them.” 

“Have you girls gotten clearance yet?” Yuqi asks, rejoining the conversations. She leaned forward with her brows pinched with concern. 

“No, not yet,” Kahei says after making sure Haseul didn’t send any messages. “It’s a little, um, frustrating? We all know Hyunjin can just program any portal around here. She can even build one her own if she has the right materials. Since we haven’t gotten clearance though, Haseul doesn’t want to risk anything.” 

“They have to abide by the law, I guess,” Tingyan shrugs with a sympathetic smile. 

“But this is someone’s life we’re talking about!” Shuhua exclaims. “Yeojin could get seriously hurt. Why don’t they just hurry it up?” she pouts with her arms crossed. Kahei was in thought when there was a knock from the entrance. 

“Hey,” Chengxiao greets them. She was followed closely by Xuanyi and Meiqi, who both flashed bright smiles as they neared the group. “Is Tzuyu not here today?” 

“She’s prepping for a mission right now,” Kahei informs. “You didn’t read her message?” Kahei scrolls quickly through their group chat to confirm that Tzuyu did inform them about missing out on the meet up. 

“Oh, no, we forgot to put everything back to Earth settings,” Meiqi says before the three of them scramble through their settings and defaults. 

“Oh, that’s right, how was the stay on Mars?” Tingyan scoots closer to Yuqi so that there was room for the three newcomers to join their circle. 

“Really good! The air quality there is so much nicer! Yeonjung even thought about staying there!” Meiqi says while the three newcomers completed the circle before going on with stories and tales about their journey to and stay on Mars for an assignment. Kahei remembers doing an extended stay on Mars in the past, and she does recall that planet being somewhat nicer than Earth. Kahei remembers Heejin rambling about how their ancestors destroyed the Earth and everything that made it beautiful, and she wondered what it would have been like to live on Earth when it was still full of water. Yeojin says that she’d take their world full of advanced technology over seawater anyday, and in some ways, Kahei would have to agree on that. 

When Kahei stares at her hands though, she isn’t quite sure. The obvious distinction between her left and right hands, even the left and right sides of her body, forced Kahei to imagine a world where advanced technology wasn’t the norm. What would her life had been like if she didn’t have to live through the hardships that she and her old squadmate had to experience. She thought about it often, as she had more time with less missions and more freetime. The thoughts filled her mind with what-ifs, and they brought Kahei nothing but an uncomfortable feeling in her chest. 

“Hey,” Kahei’s attention is brought back to reality when Tingyan suddenly stands. “Why don’t we spar a bit? It’s been quite a while, and I bet you girls,” she directs to the three latecomers. “Could blow some steam off after spending so long on the way back.” Kahei was on her way to join them when she gets a call from Haseul. 

_ “Kahei, we just got clearance! Sorry to take time away, but we have to start prep!”  _ Haseul says quickly. 

“On my way,” she says before turning to her old squad. They all met her eyes with smiles, and a thumbs up from Yuqi was all she needed before Kahei raced back to the dorm. With any luck, they could depart in the next few hours. Kahei was well away of how slow their government system works, but if all was on their side, the Orbit would already be prepared for them. 

Kahei returned to the dorm to see Haseul had already finished packing several container units, but none of them looked completed as the tops had yet to be sealed. Instead, Haseul was currently packing carrying packs, and Kahei noticed them to be their signature colors. 

“Haseul, what’s going on?” the other woman whipped around, pissed, before saying exactly what Kahei feared. 

“HQ doesn’t have the Orbit prepped yet. It’s going to take a full day,” she forced out before continuing to pack. “So instead, I told Hyunjin to get a portal ready. We’re teleporting there.” 

“Wait, what? Haseul, we can’t.” 

“I don’t care!” she snaps, her lips tight as she attempts to repress her obvious frustration. “Yeojin, for all I know, is lying dead in a river. I’m not wasting anymore time waiting for these useless politicians to tell  _ me  _ how to carry out a rescue mission,” Haseul says firmly before retrieving only one of the containers she had previously set aside. Kahei goes to grab her own carrying pack and helped in packing Heejin’s and Hyunjin’s, when she peers into the container and recognizes the objects going into them. 

“Haseul, why?” the short haired woman looks up once before returning to her task. 

“I don’t know how long we’ll be there. Hyunjin assures that she will be able to construct another portal with ease as long as she has time, but time isn’t all she needs,” she says softly. Kahei thinks for a moment before realizing the predicament. 

“Haseul, we can’t.” 

“This is the only way I can know for sure whether or not Yeojin is okay. If an unknown amount of time on a planet in a whole other galaxy is what we face, then I’m going for it. As long as I know Yeojin is okay, I don’t care what happens after that.” Her tone left no room for argument, so Kahei goes to Heejin and Hyunjin’s dorm to retrieve Hyunjin’s toolbox and Heejin’s test kit. Worst case scenario, they’d have to rebuild a life there since who knew whether or not HQ would clear any rescue missions for them since they’re illegally travelling. 

By the time she had returned, Haseul was just about done. She was currently sealing up the containers, so Kahei stuffed what she had into their respective bags, and called Hyunjin. The younger girl was quick to pick up. 

_ “It’s ready,”  _ she says plainly. 

“Great. Haseul and I are just about to bring the things over.” 

_ “Wait, I need to make sure you know what you’re getting into.”  _

“I know, Hyunjin. We both do.” There was silence on the line, so Kahei moves to help Haseul in grabbing their things and taking them to the portal that would take them right to the Graveyard. She ended the call as she was just about to be in front of Heejin and Hyunjin, and when the four of them congregate together, Kahei can feel the hesitation. 

“Hyunjin?” Haseul asks while nodding to the portal a fair distance away from where they stood. 

“It’s ready,” she nods. “Just enough to stability to get us over there-” 

“But not enough to bring us back,” Heejin finishes, chewing her bottom lip. 

“You don’t have to come, Heejin,” the young girl looks up with almost hope in her eyes, but something draws it back in. “You have a lot going for you here on Earth. We’ll survive just fine, you know?” Haseul suggests. 

Kahei knew of Heejin’s stature here on Earth. It confused her to no end as to why someone like Heejin would choose to associate herself with people like her or Hyunjin, but it wasn’t until they had attended a gala and Heejin had defended her from a group of politicians that Kahei found out that Heejin simply didn’t care about what Kahei was. The girl could care less that her own family stood with strong opinions that were not favorable towards her or Hyunjin, because for her, a person proved their worth with their actions, and nothing more. So when Heejin steels her gaze and snatches her pack from Haseul with a determined huff, Kahei is once again reminded of how powerful actions can be with the absence of words. 

Kahei sent one last message to her old squad’s group chat, making sure to inform them that even though she may be gone indefinitely, she will never forget them. Despite the panicked messages back, Kahei finds comfort in the one message she receives from Tingyan. 

_ “Make sure you don’t return until you get her back.”  _

And with one final breath, Kahei leaps into the portal. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. Love Cherry Motion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I went and reread chapter 2 and realized that I made Minji’s name “Minju,” oof. And it wasn’t even like a one time typo either. I spelled her name wrong the entire freaking thing. The InSomnia in me couldn’t get that mistake out of my head the entire time I was writing chapter 3, and I felt like a whole failure. I’m sorry, our pink princess, huhuhu… I went and changed it now. 
> 
> I quickly realized that choosing chapter titles that revolve around different points of views and motivations is extremely difficult, especially since I’m trying to use LOONA’s song titles, so please bear with me, as the titles may not be great introductions to the content of each chapter… Or if they do connect in some way, it’s for some minute or obscure reason that I may or may not feel inclined to explain to you all. I also may or may not recruit the help of songs that LOONA has covered just to have a bit more to choose from (ie. Full Moon, Thanks, etc), but we’ll see how it goes. 
> 
> I've also been using "warp" and "jump" pretty interchangeably up until now, simply because I hadn't made concrete definitions for them yet, but starting this chapter, they will be used in the context I want them to be used. They will gradually all be changed (if needed) in the previous chapters. 
> 
> _"These italics"_ are communication through a medium (though will not be the entire time... you'll see why).
> 
> Not proofread. 
> 
> Archive warnings are subject to change. 
> 
> Happy reading!

The morning after Minji and her pack dropped Yeojin off for them to babysit (humansit?), Sooyoung is awakened by the unfamiliar, bipedal steps of their human companion. She knows the human understands that her pack is its best chance of survival, so Sooyoung didn’t expect it to run off or go anywhere far. She decided to keep her eyes closed, resting a bit more to prepare for another day. Maybe she could trek through their territory to look for any other humans that might be in this one’s pack… Did humans have packs? She’d have to ask Jiwoo later on. 

“The hell?!” Yeojin exclaimed, startling Sooyoung awake. She was up on her feet quick, teeth ready to bare themselves, thinking that a foreign shifter was on her land due to the appearance of the human. Though, she would have known of the presence beforehand… 

The small creature was standing at the edge of their den and staring at the sky. Sooyoung sighed, feeling exhausted just from the presence of the human. She padded over to figure out what the small human was looking at and found herself confused. 

“What’s wrong with the sky? Does it look different from your sky?” the creature turned up with wide eyes, and Sooyoung had realized too late that it was about to shout. 

“Did you guys get bombed?!” Yeojin exclaimed again. Sooyoung winced, her ears pulling back at the shrill sounds that came from the tiny creature before her. 

“What are you talking about?” she asked, her ears still pulled back. She heard Hyejoo grumble from further inside the den, the young alpha once again prematurely woken up from her slumber. 

“There is ash falling from the sky!” Yeojin stuck her arm out of the den to point at the sky. She then recoiled when a bit of “ash” falls on her arm before looking at it strangely. “Why is it cold?” she wondered quietly. 

“Have you never seen snow before?” Sooyoung asked, genuinely surprised. Was it that different on other planets? She’d never even fathomed a year without snow. 

“Wait, this is snow?” Yeojin stepped out of the den then, holding her arms out as she faced the sky. The snowfall was very light this morning, with nothing on the ground but a layer of frost from the cold night they had. There wasn’t enough snow to cover the ground at all as it would melt seconds after reaching the dirt, but Sooyoung could see bits hanging on the pines just outside the den. 

“Do you not have snow on Earth?” Yeojin shook her head. 

“I’ve only ever read about snow in history books and seen it in old movies. But in those movies, it snows super hard and everything is white! Haseul-unnie says our ancestors changed the Earth’s climate so much that we no longer get weather like rain or snow... Or something like that,” Yeojin explained with a shrug while continuing to stare at the sky with child-like wonder. 

“Then what’s the weather like?” Sooyoung asked, genuinely curious. 

“Oh, I don’t really know. Most of the population lives in controlled environments. Our ancestors created dome enclosures to keep out whatever is of the real Earth. I’ve only stepped into the Graveyard once, and it was dark and freezing cold! The weather is just… normal? I guess? It’s never too hot or too cold and is basically the same throughout the year,” Yeojin said. Sooyoung frowned, both interested and concerned at the living conditions on Earth. It was interesting how humans were able to create such things as environment-controlled enclosures to surround what seems to be their entire living space, but Sooyoung figured she’d grow bored. She loved the changing seasons here on Eden, and she would never wish for stagnant weather as each season brought something new for her to do and see. 

“Well, the snow is really light today, if you can even call it snow. Wait a few nights, and it will really start coming down,” Sooyoung said before beginning to walk out of the den. 

“Really?! Hey, where are you going?” Yeojin looked to the sky once more before following after Sooyoung. 

“Since I’m already up, I might as well start my day,” she said. 

“What’re you gonna do?” 

“Hunt, maybe? What do you like to eat?” Sooyoung asked before yawning widely, her teeth being shown in full. 

“Hunt? Wait, like living animals?” Yeojin asked. 

“Yes?” Sooyoung said, casting Yeojin a confused look. “What else would we eat?” 

“You don’t have Imators?” Yeojin asked in a louder tone. 

“The heck is an Imator?” 

“What?!” she screeched. Sooyoung’s ears pull back in reflex. “You poor souls! Once Haseul-unnie rescues me, I’ll go to Earth and come back with an Imator just for you all!” Yeojin doesn’t elaborate on the function of this “Imator,” but Sooyoung is now interested in another part of her statement. 

“Are you certain you’ll be rescued?” she asked. The small creature turned to her then with a scrunched forehead. 

“Of course! Haseul-unnie would never abandon me!” Yeojin said firmly. 

“Agh!” a voice then roared from inside the den. “Can you two  _ please  _ shut up!” Hyejoo growled grumpily before turning over with a “fwump.” 

“Hyejoo, you’re awake,” Sooyoung said. 

“No I’m not,” Hyejoo replied, but Sooyoung ignored her. 

“Yeojin, you’ll stay at the den with Chaewon and Hyejoo. I’ll go out to look for something suitable for you to eat since I’m sure you can’t eat raw food,” Sooyoung said before running off, effectively cutting off anything Yeojin was going to say to her. Yeojin just pouted before returning into the den and plopped down beside Hyejoo. She had her knees up against her chest, and carelessly put her chin on her knee, only to recoil when a stinging sensation comes from the cuts on her chin. 

Hyejoo had gotten up and offered to lick her wounds, but Yeojin vehemently refused. The dark shifter appeared to shrug, and Yeojin was instead treated by Jiwoo in her human form when she woke up. Yeojin also heard Chaewon say something about Hyejoo not knowing how to lick wounds, and the dark shifter scowled at the other. 

Over the next five days, Yeojin notices that Jiwoo seemed to be the most comfortable in her human form, as since Yeojin’s been on Eden, Yeojin has only seen Sooyoung shift once and has never seen Chaewon or Hyejoo shift. Though with the convenience of their wolf form, Yeojin couldn't help but understand why they'd rather stay in their wolf form.

For one, it was easier for them to retain heat. Winter was coming in fast, and it took nearly every layer of cloth the four shifters had to keep Yeojin warm when winds whipped through the entrance of their den and managed to wiggle their way through the woven and synthesized threads. It had been hard for her to fall asleep the second night (she fell into a deep slumber during the first due to sheer exhaustion), and on the third, Yeojin woke up pressed between one of the cave's walls and Sooyoung's warm body (Yeojin decided from that day on that Sooyoung was a big softie despite her rough exterior).

Another advantage was their ability to immediately eat what they kill... as well as resist the desire to hurl their insides upon seeing a dead animal. Since on the first day Yeojin survived off of rations in her pack and berries that Sooyoung brought back, the second morning, when Sooyoung and Jiwoo had gone on their daily patrol, Hyejoo had gone out to hunt a deer. Yeojin could see in the way the dark shifter had her head held high when she returned that she was quite proud of it. Yeojin almost felt bad when she expressed not wanting to eat the animal, but Hyejoo seemed persistent to impress, so she left again before returning with a large fish. Hyejoo returned to be met with a very angry Sooyoung as the older scolded the younger for being irresponsible as she had left a human and an omega (Yeojin is taught by Jiwoo the social hierarchy that existed on Eden) to fend for themselves. Jiwoo got Sooyoung to lay off of the scolding by asking if she wanted to go clear her head. The alpha left without a word. 

_ "You still remember how to cook this?" _ Hyejoo had asked Jiwoo, seemingly unbothered by Sooyoung’s outburst moments ago.

_ "Hyejoo, it's not hard or anything," _ Jiwoo had replied after a beat. Hyejoo didn't seem impressed or offended though. She just blankly stared and waited for the answer to her question.  _ "Yes, I remember how to cook fish," _ Jiwoo finally said with a shake of her head and a smile. With that, Hyejoo left them to do their "human thing" to join Chaewon in feasting on the deer. Yeojin had made sure to face the opposite direction lest she throw up then and there (though before turning around, she notices the omega’s eyes searching for the other alpha). 

Something Yeojin doesn't envy about being a wolf, though, was the constant encounters and fights over territory and "property." Whatever animosity the previous day brought disappeared into thin air, and Yeojin had asked Sooyoung and Jiwoo to let her join their patrol of their borders on her third and fourth day because she was bored waiting in the den and could see that Chaewon and Hyejoo were somewhat upset they had to stay at the den to watch her and make sure she didn't get eaten or something instead of being able to go out. The third day was uneventful besides Jiwoo failing to convince Sooyoung to let Yeojin sit on her back since her body wasn't accustomed to long distance travel, especially so at such high altitudes, and let Yeojin atop her own back instead. Though Sooyoung seemed to feel guilty, as she grunted wordlessly to let Yeojin atop of her on the way back.

The fourth day was a different story.

The pack that had approached them was new to the area, Jiwoo had told her. They were also young, and it was for those reasons that the pack had approached them at all, with their leader challenging Sooyoung for her territory as well as claim over Chaewon. Yeojin could understand fighting over territory. She saw a bit of it with Minji and her pack just a few days ago. But fighting for other shifters? She couldn't quite wrap her mind around that.

Jiwoo had pushed herself to stand in front of Yeojin, and Yeojin was confused as to how it would be okay to leave Sooyoung to fight off the eleven shifters, but it turns out, it was just one shifter. The one who appeared to be the leader squared off with Sooyoung, and they circled for a few moments, sizing each other up. The other shifter made the first move, and Yeojin closed her eyes, afraid to see spewing blood as she had no idea how this face off would go. But within seconds, Yeojin hears a piercing whimper, and she opens her eyes to see Sooyoung's mouth at the neck of the other shifter as she presses it harder into the ground the more it kicked it legs and moved its body. Sooyoung growled deeply periodically, her body weight shifting forward whenever the other shifter jerked around, trying to get up. After what felt like hours of waiting, Yeojin sees the other shifter rest limply on the ground, and Sooyoung carefully releases her grip on its neck before stepping away, but not turning her back.

The other shifter gets up slowly with its head bowed down, ears pulled back, and tail between its legs. It looked at Sooyoung once before retreating to the rest of its pack, and the group of shifters began their trek away from them. Yeojin released a breath she wasn't aware she had been holding when they turned to leave and held herself up using Jiwoo as support.

Sooyoung came out of that bout with nothing but a scratch on her muzzle, likely from the flailing limbs from when she had the other shifter pressed against dirt. The red was easily spotted against her white coat, but none of the liquid dripped out of the opening, so it was nothing but a surface wound. But Jiwoo approached Sooyoung anyway and swiped a tongue across the harmless cut a few times before Sooyoung pulled away, assuring that it was nothing, and that she had experienced worse. If the fact that she never put weight on her left foreleg when she was stagnant, or the fact that the skin underneath her coat wasn’t smooth meant anything, it was that she spoke the truth. Yeojin wasn’t sure she’d be ready for any of the times Sooyoung or any of the other shifters would have to go through something like the incidents that nearly crippled Sooyoung’s leg and put scars along the length of her body. 

Yeojin had assumed that because she was the leading alpha--major, she quickly learned--Sooyoung would be the only one with scars. After all, she seemed to be the only one who would engage in challenges. But she distinctly remembers catching something discolored under the cardigan-like cloth Jiwoo wrapped herself with whenever she was in her human form. Yeojin must have stared at it for too long one time, because Jiwoo moved to cover up whatever it was when she catches Yeojin’s eyes looking at her chest. There was nothing but a smile from the shifter afterwards, but Yeojin still felt guilty for staring at something the shifter obviously didn’t like showing to the world. 

She couldn’t be sure about Chaewon or Hyejoo. Yeojin still has yet to see either of them shift into their human forms, and the two often huddled together towards the back of the den. So unless she openly stared at them for lengthy periods of time or held a light over them, she doesn’t think she’d ever see anything until they shift. Chaewon, being an omega, was protected at all times. Yeojin can’t imagine a situation where Chaewon would have gotten hurt when Sooyoung was so protective, and Hyejoo rarely left her side. Hyejoo, being an alpha, surely must have a scar or two underneath her thick, dark coat. The younger alpha often sparred with Sooyoung or even Jiwoo during their free time, and an accident must have happened once or twice. 

Since that first morning with the snow--or flurry, as Jiwoo described--there hasn’t been any during the waking hours of the morning. Both Sooyoung and Jiwoo though assured that the snow would fall heavily when she least expects it, and Yeojin can’t help but feel excited at the promise of seeing the land be covered in a blanket of white. She wonders for a moment whether or not her squadmates will be able to see the snow that falls on Eden. The thought gets pushed away when Sooyoung asks Yeojin if she wants to explore the area while the sun is still out. Yeojin excitedly runs to grab her backpack and throws herself into the wilderness with Sooyoung right behind her. 

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

The first thing Haseul acknowledges when she opens her eyes is that this sky is different than hers. For one, there were clouds. She’s never seen a real cloud in her twenty-six years of life, but they are in stark contrast to the clouds of smoke that rose into her sky back home on Earth. Another thing she sees--well, not really sees--is the sun. She remembers learning about how the human population travelled to a new solar system when the sun had expanded so much that the heat was making the Earth uninhabitable. Scientists and astronauts at the time spent hundreds of thousands of years in locating a planet that wouldn’t meet the same fate as the original Earth, and made it habitable for humans.

That was how they got to live on their current Earth. Haseul has seen the Earth and their surrounding galaxy dozens of times. From space, the Earth looked like a barren landscape. Their ancestors had discovered a galaxy surrounded by a dead star--it likely acted the same way their old sun did, Heejin had told her once--and chose it as a suitable place to move human life. Their ancestors created dome-like structures to create an artificial atmosphere for humans to thrive. Pathways created and surrounded by this same material allowed more and more domes to be created, until eventually, the planet their ancestors found became habitable for humans in its own way. 

The original plan, Heejin tells her once, was to cover the entire planet with this artificial dome to make the entire planet habitable. But that was until government officials learned that tossing criminals and anyone they didn’t like into the oxygen-less space just outside the domes was favorable for them, and this is how the Graveyard came to be. The inner cities of the domes were hundreds of miles away from the outer edge of the domes, so rarely anyone saw what it was like out in the Graveyards. 

But Hyunjin was from the Graveyard, and Haseul owed it to her squadmate to see where she came from, no matter how much the sight of floating, dead bodies wanted to make her tear her eyes out and erase the images from her mind. 

Haseul groaned as she pushed herself up, her body feeling extremely heavy. It must be the change in gravity or the pressure of the teleport. She certainly wasn’t well-versed in teleportation, and it’s not like there were any formal lessons on it. She felt dizzy when she lifted her head up and would have jumped when she felt a hand come to grab her shoulder firmly if she wasn’t so out of it. 

“Haseul, are you okay?” she hears Kahei ask softly from beside her. 

“Yeah, just give me a second,” she manages to say. It takes what feels like hours for her to reorient herself and for the throbbing in her head to go away, but eventually, she is able to move her eyes without feeling like she’s tearing her nerves, and she lets Kahei help her up. She glances around to see Hyunjin somewhere to the side with Heejin curled up against her shoulder. Hyunjin looked fine, probably because she’s experimented with and used portals often, but Heejin looked to be in a similar state to her own. She deeply felt for the younger girl. 

“Where to?” Hyunjin asks. Heejin only moves her head to face in Haseul’s direction, but her eyes were still closed as she tried to will away her obvious headache. 

“I don’t know,” Haseul says. She slowly turns to look at what was around her, and she realizes that this planet looked very similar to the pictures she’s seen of the original Earth. They had landed on what appeared to be a mountain, if the clouds that seemed to be at her eye-level meant anything. “I guess we just walk and see where the wind takes us,” she says. Kahei and Hyunjin nod, gathering the bags that they had left on the ground beside them, with Hyunjin also tasked with persuading Heejin to get up. 

With Heejin slightly sobered up, the younger girl suddenly began showing interest in the sights around her. Haseul realizes that this planet must be a budding scientist’s dream, especially when they lived on a planet where all life other than human life was created through artificial means. Hyunjin had begun tweaking with her comm, and Kahei was… playing with her dagger. 

“Kahei, I don’t think we’ll need that,” Haseul tries. 

“You never know what we’ll encounter out here,” Kahei says. 

“I’m sure we’ll be able to talk it out with whatever is out there.” 

“Haseul, this is Eden. Wolves exist in masses on this planet.” 

“Yeah, well I’m sure they’ll leave us alone if we don’t provoke them. Violence isn’t always the answer.” 

“And neither is diplomacy,” Kahei says firmly. She and Haseul always had differing opinions on how to deal with new situations, and though Haseul couldn’t blame the older woman for always jumping at the option to just kill whatever was in front of her, she also wanted the older woman to know and see that violence wasn’t the only way to solve problems and get through life. 

“Can we just go now?” Heejin says before Haseul can say anything back. “And can we go uphill?” she asks, her eyes twinkling ever so slightly at the opportunity of a lifetime. 

“Sure, why not? Maybe we can find a cliff to look around from,” Haseul says. Kahei nods before beginning the ascent up, her dagger still gripped firmly in her hand. Haseul could do nothing but sigh as she gestured for Heejin and Hyunjin to follow up first as she watched them from behind. 

Haseul wasn’t sure if it was because of the atmosphere being different or if it proved how out of shape she truly was, but she was having a hard time catching her breath with every step she took. Heejin took long, deep breaths every now and again, while Kahei and Hyunjin appeared fine. Haseul could understand Kahei’s state of fitness, but Hyunjin was a bit of a mystery. The girl was an expert at hiding how she truly felt though, so Haseul believed that Hyunjin was just trying to impress. Though she really didn’t have to, as the only person she would have to try and impress was Heejin, and Heejin had been impressed by Hyunjin from the moment they met ten years ago. 

Kahei suddenly stopped and raised her dagger up to her chest-level, but from the angle she was standing, Haseul couldn’t quite tell what was happening. She took a deep breath before pushing herself to jog the little way further to get to where Kahei was, and when she did, she immediately froze when she spots a group of seven wolves coming down the hill. There weren’t any large rocks or trees to hide behind, so they were left out in the open and vulnerable. Seven pairs of eyes land on them as Heejin and Hyunjin back further away from Kahei’s position in front of them, and Haseul tries to gather up the courage to stand beside the older woman. 

Sensing her distress, Kahei moves to step directly between them and the wolves, stance defensive as she readied herself for any bit of movement. The forward three wolves advanced slowly, watching them carefully with the eyes of predators. Struck with a thought, Haseul turns her body to switch her translator on with as little movement as possible, and when she did, she was surprised to hear voices--the voices of the wolves, to be exact. 

_ “-more Earthians?” _ the smallest of them all says. Its nose moved a bit, a tell-tale sign that it was familiarizing itself with their scent. 

_ “Do you think this one is related to… what was the other one called again?” _

_ “Yeojin?” _

At the sound of her sister’s name, Haseul bursts forward from beside Heejin and Hyunjin and was barely blocked by Kahei. A wolf that had been relatively quiet towards the back made itself known at the front, growling through its teeth and its fur on end, until a reddish one steps forward. 

_ “Yoobin, wait,” _ it says before taking careful steps towards them. 

“Stay back,” Kahei says in warning. Haseul isn’t sure if the wolves could understand them, but the tone in Kahei’s voice and her aggressive stance should have been enough. Though neither of them stopped the approaching wolf. 

_ “Gahyeon,” _ it calls.  _ “Do you think they’re here for Yeojin?” _ Haseul keeps quiet at the sound of Yeojin’s name again, waiting to see what was going to happen next. 

_ “It’s very likely. Their equipment looks very similar.” _

_ “One of them really smells like Yeojin too,” _ the small one remarks. The reddish one looks at them without words, before it tilted its head as if to look for something. 

_ “I know you understand me,” _ it then says, seemingly to none of them in particular, but Haseul could feel the words and gaze directed towards her. Haseul raises her hand to her ear to feel for her comm. Despite her short hair, she knew it was well hidden, especially with it being rather small in size and tucked around and behind her ear. Obviously they’ve come across Yeojin before, or at least, other Earthians. 

“So you’ve-” 

_ “But I can’t understand you,” _ it interrupts.  _ “I assume you’re here for Yeojin? Just nod or shake your head. I can understand that.” _ Haseul nods, and Kahei side eyes her. 

“What are you doing?” she whispers. Haseul glances up and notes that the turning and flipping of triangle-shaped ears means the wolves can still hear them. 

“Being diplomatic,” she replies. Kahei sends her a glare, but Haseul barely takes notice as she returns her attention to the wolves. 

_ “Well, just so you can get a layout of the area, we’re just past the Flatlands,” _ it says before turning to face upwind.  _ “Walk against the wind till you reach the Basilisk. It’s a winding river that nearly stretches across the entirety of the Serpent's Back. Travel downstream, and it’ll take you to where you need to go. Once you pass through the Flatlands, there will be an incline; atop that incline is a dense forest; and within that dense forest is a den. Well, cave, as you’ll see it as. I have a friend there, another pack. They’re watching over Yeojin,” _ it then turns back to face them.  _ “You should leave now before night falls. I know you humans are terrible in the dark.”  _

“We’ll be okay,” Haseul says, but then remembers they can’t understand her, so she brings her hand up to gesture that they’ll be fine. The wolf seems to understand her, and it nods in return. 

_ “Still, you should leave now. A majority of the Flatlands is our territory, and with us leaving for now, new, young packs will surely travel through there, and I can assure you that they aren’t as kind or smart enough to leave you alone. You’re all prey out here, and I hope your friend there,” _ it nods its head towards Kahei who stiffens at being given attention.  _ “Is able enough to keep you all alive.” _ Haseul returns the advice with a nod and bows her head in thanks. Satisfied, the reddish wolf looks towards the others before trotting away from them. Some of them kept watchful eyes as they passed, but within a minute, the wolves were gone, and out of sight. 

“What was that all about?” Kahei asks when they can no longer see the wolves. 

“The red one--I think it was the leader--it noticed my comm and knew that it had a translator function. It said they knew Yeojin, and it gave me directions to find her.” 

“How can we trust them? For all we know, they’re planning to pin us out in the open and devour us all,” Heejin says cautiously. 

“They didn’t seem to want to hurt us. After all, if they really wanted to, I’m sure they would have already.” The others nodded in agreement before turning back to her, waiting for directions. “Alright, this way,” Haseul says, taking the lead now. Kahei moves to the back, still keeping the two youngest between them, and they continued on their way, this time against the wind. 

Hyunjin was typing furiously in the air, and if it weren’t for her knowledge of their comms, Haseul would think that Hyunjin looked ridiculous. The girl was going through program after program as she attempted to connect their comms to the servers on Earth. Hyunjin assured that she had created a backdoor when she modified their comms all those years ago, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to connect themselves to Earth due to the sheer distance. 

Heejin was distracting her mind from running too rampant by murmuring to herself using words Haseul has never heard before while rummaging through her pack as she examined the ground they walked on. Haseul had to turn around periodically to make sure they were still moving, as Heejin would, without signal, stop to pick up or look at something on the ground before putting it into one of her many sample bags or containers, or tossing it back, accompanied by some variation of the word, “useless.” 

The Basilisk was an impressive river, Haseul thinks when they arrive at its banks. The waters were impossibly clear, so much so that she could see the bottom despite it being some three-hundred feet to the river floor (Kahei tells her after looking into the river for no more than two seconds). It was also wide, and Haseul thinks that swimming to the other side would have been a death sentence if the river was full of rapids. It wasn’t though, if the slow moving fish were any indication. 

As they hiked along the river though, Haseul did in fact find rapids that churned the water so much that the area around it was soaked through, creating mud banks, and forcing them to walk several feet away from the river unless they wanted to wrestle one another out of the mud after every step they took. Haseul also noticed that the depth of the water changed rapidly, where it was hundreds of feet deep before and only several feet deep now. The river slithered through the land without pattern, occasionally breaking off to create new rivers that ran further down the mountains they found themselves on. It also undulated without pattern, and Haseul can’t imagine what it must be like to wade through the river with it being waist deep before taking a step and suddenly losing all footing. It was a good thing that the river was so clear. 

By the time they had reached what could only be the hill that the wolf had told her about, the sun was going down. The forest that seemed to fill out the top of the hill looked ominous from their position. Maybe it was due to the setting sun making the forest look pitch black, or maybe it was just the knowledge that there was another group of wolves in there, possibly lying in wait for them to go in before tearing them to pieces… Haseul had to ask Heejin to keep her dark thoughts to herself. 

Haseul began the ascent, ignoring Heejin’s and Hyunjin’s whispers and Kahei’s threatening energy coming from behind her. The important thing was finding Yeojin. That was all that mattered to Haseul at this point. She took confident strides up the incline, but paused when she spots movement. Kahei must have seen it as well because she suddenly rushes forward to stand in front of Haseul, her hand on the gun against her thigh. But the figure looked human, and Haseul placed a hand on Kahei’s shoulder, signalling her to wait. 

“Is that…” Haseul murmurs right before laying eyes on a familiar, orange backpack. “Yeojin?” she calls out a little louder, and when the small body turns around at the call Haseul bursts forward up the hill. “Yeojin!” she exclaims as she rushes with open arms towards her younger sister. 

“Haseul-unnie!” Yeojin mirrors her. Haseul, for a moment, wants to tease the younger girl over how excited she seems to be. But Yeojin’s messy hair, dirt-covered face, and scattered scratches stops her from doing so… At least for now. She grabs Yeojin in a tight hug and immediately regrets pressing her face against Yeojin’s head. 

“Whoa! You smell terrible!” Haseul says. It was true, she did smell terrible, but it was mostly used as a way for Haseul to poke fun. 

“Hey!” Yeojin is about to retaliate when Heejin rushes over. 

“Thank goodness you’re okay! I don’t know what I would’ve done if we arrived here to find you torn to shreds or be nothing but a pile of bones!” Yeojin’s face freezes and becomes drained of color at the images now in her head, and Haseul is about to try and act like a comforting, big sister (well, she was one! Yeojin continuously denied it though) when the three of them are pushed together by an outside force. Haseul turns her head to find Hyunjin, her absurdly long arms wrapped around the three of them, and her face dusted with a blush. Haseul has a smile on her face until she notices that another of their own is missing from the huddle. 

“Kahei?” she calls out, wiggling just enough in Hyunjin’s embrace for her to understand that she needed space. Haseul spots the older girl faced away from them, head turned up the hill to see a white wolf observing them from the edge of the forest. 

“Kahei-unnie, it’s okay!” Yeojin exclaims. Kahei spares her a wary glance before returning her gaze towards the wolf, seeing it as an aggressor. Yeojin waves her hand in front of Kahei’s face to try and bring her attention back to her and away from the aggressive-yet-maybe-not-aggressive presence, and whines when it doesn’t work. Instead, she begins a run up the rest of the hill towards the wolf, and like Kahei, Haseul’s instinctive reaction is to stop her from approaching the wolf. 

“Yeojin, wait!” Kahei calls out, just barely missing Yeojin’s arm. With her heart pounding, Haseul watches as Yeojin runs up to wrap arms around the wolf’s head with a bright smile on her face. 

“See? It’s totally fine!” Yeojin exclaims before squeezing the wolf tighter. The wolf releases a low growl from its chest, and Yeojin releases it before sheepishly apologizing. The wolf sweeps its gaze over them once more before retreating into the forest. “Don’t mind Sooyoung,” Yeojin says while descending the hill once again. “She’s just shy,” Yeojin says with a smile. She then takes Haseul’s hand before dragging her up the hill. “Now, c’mon! It’s going to get dark in like ten minutes, and I don’t want anyone freezing to death on a foreign planet!” 

Haseul lets herself get dragged, simply happy that she had Yeojin back. She catches Kahei’s wary expression and reaches out to hold her hand, hoping to instill some level of comfort in the older woman. Kahei takes in a sharp breath at the contact before breathing out deeply. Haseul knows that Kahei is now allowing herself to relax for a moment, and Haseul congratulates herself in getting the older woman to finally let loose a tiny bit. Even if it would only be for a moment, it was better than nothing. 

Heejin and Hyunjin had locked hands at some point as they trailed right behind them. Heejin’s head whipped back and forth as she took in all the new sights, scents, and sounds, and Hyunjin was still typing away with one hand, while somehow being able to avoid any and all obstacles on the ground or in front of her. Haseul observed their linked hands for a bit, and realized that the two of them were constantly pulling the other back towards them. Heejin would sometimes begin to wander as she spotted something interesting, and Hyunjin would reel her back in. Hyunjin would sometimes lose herself in the mess of code in front of her, and Heejin would tug her back to avoid a tree or bush. They worked well when they were together, and they were good for one another. The sight gave Haseul another reason to never regret voting for Hyunjin to stay with them. Haseul couldn’t imagine what her squad would’ve been like if Hyunjin hadn’t stayed. 

Well, she could imagine. She just refused to believe that what she imagined could have been  _ them _ , the  _ real  _ them. 

As they broke through into a clearing, Haseul spots a large, cave-like structure. She stared in awe at the way it loomed over her until she caught movement coming from the entrance of the cave. Out came two new wolves, a reddish one and a silver one, and in the split second it took Haseul to react, Kahei drew her gun, aiming it towards the wolves. The silver one shrinks back at the aggression, and the red one stands between Kahei and the other wolf, growling lowly at the stranger. 

“Kahei-unnie, stop it!” Yeojin yells, running over to the older woman to try and swat the gun out of her hands. Kahei easily moves the gun out of the way before raising it again to aim at the two wolves, her eyes never leaving them. 

_ “You have violent friends, Yeojin,” _ a voice says. Haseul turns to spot the white wolf from before along with a black wolf. They each carried a fish in their mouths, and Haseul’s stomach was reminded that she hadn’t eaten a solid meal all day. 

“I know, Sooyoung, I’m sorry! Believe me though, it’s just Kahei-unnie,” Yeojin says before attempting (and failing) to swat Kahei’s gun out of her hands again. 

_ “It’s fine,” _ it chuckles from its chest.  _ “They’re in a different world with different creatures. I would be wary if I was in their position,” _ the white wolf says before walking into the line of fire, seemingly without a care. The black wolf turned its head several times, looking like it was battling itself between attacking Kahei and ignoring her. 

_ “Are those for them?” _ the red wolf asks, looking more relaxed now that the white and black wolves were there. 

_ “Yes. I’m sure they need food. All I can smell from their bags are those dried foods and rations the nons carry around with them when they travel.”  _

_ “And if Yeojin’s bag is similar to theirs, then I’m sure they don’t have much,” _ the red wolf says. It glances at them before turning around and disappearing into the cave. The white and black wolves set the fish down next to one another, and the white wolf gestures for the black and silver wolves to go into the cave as well. They follow without a word, and it’s just them four with the white wolf. Seconds later, a woman comes out while adjusting a cardigan-like cloth around her shoulders. 

“What the fuck?” Kahei murmurs, her eyes following the woman move to toss wood between two large rocks. She then struck two objects to create sparks, and the sparks soon produced what she needed to create a fire. 

_ “We’re making food for you,” _ the white wolf says.  _ “I’d greatly appreciate it if you didn’t point a gun at us,” _ it said calmly. Haseul moved to slowly lower Kahei’s hands, and before the older woman could protest, Haseul cut her off. 

“Turn your translators on,” Haseul says. She sees Heejin and Hyunjin follow the order from their position behind her and Kahei, but the older woman was confused. 

“Why?” 

“Kahei, these wolves-” 

_ “Shifters,” _ the white wolf says (Haseul hears both Heejin and Hyunjin gasp).  _ “We aren’t just wolves, or humans,” _ it nods its head towards the woman beside it who was busying herself with descaling, gutting, and making slits in the fish with a knife. 

“Okay, these shifters,” Haseul emphasizes before turning back to Kahei. “Are just trying to help us. They’re cooking fish for us right now,” Haseul says gently. 

_ “Yeojin, you can take the other two to settle in the den. Hopefully they can handle the cold for tonight. I’ll retrieve more cloths in the morning,” _ the white wolf says. Yeojin nods and walks over to Heejin and Hyunjin as they let themselves get taken into the cave--den?--with wide eyes at the talking wolf… or shifter. “Why don’t you two join us here,” the white wolf then says. “I’ll even shift into my human form if it makes you more comfortable.” 

“Yes, please,” Kahei whispers, her translator apparently on now. Her brows were creased deeply, expressing her discomfort with the creatures. The white shifter appeared to be beginning to shift, its body changing shape and its fur receding, when the woman smacks them. 

“Go shift in the den and put clothes on,” she reprimands. The white shifter looks bewildered for a moment before quickly regaining composure. 

“Oh, right,” it says before going into the den. The woman turns to them when the white shifter disappears and pats a spot in the dirt next to her. 

“Oh, wait, did you want a rock or log to sit on? Sorry, we don’t have chairs or anything like that since we never use them.” 

“Um,” Haseul turns to Kahei to see her still looking uncomfortable. “Yeah, I think it would help,” she decides, even though sitting on rocks or logs wasn’t at all reminiscent of any of their experiences on Earth. The woman smiles widely before getting up off the ground to retrieve a fallen tree from the forest. She steps on and kicks it several times, testing its stability, before she lifts it with surprising strength and gently lays it down on one side of the fire. She then moves to the opposite side, presumably to give them space, before continuing her work. Kahei seemed to appreciate the space given, her forehead smoothed over a bit, and her breathing steady. 

Moments later, a short-haired woman comes out from the den, and Haseul can only assume they were--well, she was--the white wolf. She approaches with an awkward smile, her body looking almost uncomfortable as she sat beside the other woman. The other woman laughs. 

“You don’t have to make your discomfort that obvious, Soo.”

“I’m sorry, these cloths will never not be uncomfortable. And two legs? No tail? I don’t know how you all  _ want  _ to be in these bodies,” she then looks up towards Haseul and Kahei. “Oh, and you humans don’t even get to choose…” the other woman elbows her roughly. 

“Leave them alone,” she says sharply, but with a smile still evident. 

“Seriously though, the only thing good about the human body is-”

“Geez!” Another smack. “Please just stop talking.”

“Um,” Haseul starts, mirroring Kahei’s confused face with a voice full of it. 

“Ah, my apologies,” the short haired woman starts. “My name is Sooyoung, I’m the white-coated shifter. This is Jiwoo, the red-coated shifter,” she introduces. “The silver-coated one is Chaewon, and the black-coated one is Hyejoo,” she says while gesturing towards the den’s general location. Jiwoo waves at them and flashes a bright smile before getting back to the fish. She had just finished rubbing what looked like salt into the slits she made in the fish, and was currently laying sticks, which were held up by the two rocks, across the top of the fire. 

“I’m Haseul, and this is Kahei. The two from earlier are Heejin and Hyunjin,” Haseul introduces in turn. She watches Jiwoo place the fish on top of the sticks, before leaning back on her hands and now giving her attention to them. 

“Nice to meet you,” Sooyoung says. “I hope you don’t mind how little food there is for you two, and Heejin and Hyunjin. It’s late, and I figured you must have eaten a little on the way here. We’ll have a heartier meal in the morning.” 

“Oh, don’t worry. This is more than we could have asked for,” Haseul assures. “Thank you… And thank you for taking care of Yeojin. I’m sure you didn’t have to.” 

“Well, I kind of did. A long time friend of mine found her and asked me to take care of Yeojin until we could figure out how to send her back to Earth. I wouldn’t want to disappoint my friend,” Sooyoung shrugs. 

“We would have taken care of her anyway,” Jiwoo says. 

“Yes, thank you again. And don’t worry about breakfast! We’ll be out of your hair in the morning. I’m sure we can find a place to stay while figuring out how to get back to Earth,” Haseul says. 

“You’re more than welcome to stay if you’d like,” Sooyoung says. The statement was surprising, even to Jiwoo apparently, who looked to the other shifter with confusion. 

“But Soo, you and Chaewon-” 

“Can make the trip to Cape Diamond instead. I’ll take a little detour on patrol tomorrow and re-mark the area in case anyone has tried staking claim there. You can stay here and make sure no one tries something stupid with all these humans around.” Jiwoo gives Sooyoung a wide smile before murmuring something Haseul can’t quite hear. 

“Am not,” Sooyoung replies with a pout, and Haseul finds interest in seeing the expression on the shifter’s face. 

“Are too,” Jiwoo says. “Well, like Sooyoung said,” Jiwoo says towards them. “You are all welcome to stay. We have plenty of room in the den, and you humans in your human bodies don’t eat very much. Stay here for as long as you need,” Jiwoo says with a kind of finality that Haseul can’t seem to refuse. 

“Thank you… again,” Haseul says quietly. They are silent for the rest of the time it takes for the fish to cook, and though one fish was supposed to be shared between two people, Haseul and Kahei ended up with a fish each since Heejin and Hyunjin had fallen asleep in the den, and Haseul didn’t have the heart to wake them. It was surprisingly good despite having been seasoned with nothing but salt and cooked atop sticks, but maybe it was just the hunger speaking. 

Jiwoo advised them to huddle together when they sleep since it was cold and their layers may not be enough. The four shifters even formed a barrier between them and the entrance of the den to try and block as much wind from getting to them as possible. Haseul didn’t think she’d be comfortable sleeping against the hard cave-floor, but the moment she closed her eyes, her exhaustion got to her, and she was out like a light. 

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

Yerim remembers the first time she prepared for a jump with Jungeun and Jinsol, they were extremely confused. There was no physical preparedness needed prior to jumping besides getting good sleep and eating well. The toll on the body after the jump was the real issue that needed to be watched, and normally, the board was very careful and thorough with this. Yerim never liked making negative assumptions about people. She believes that deep down, everyone was good, but Yerim couldn’t help but feel like the board’s guinea pig. 

The first time she thought this was when she was first discovered to be a DSJ. She was registered as an ASJ, of course, so when cameras caught her using an RSJ skill, she was promptly approached by the board and was asked to immediately enlist under the Bureau. It didn’t help that she appeared to get special treatment because of her abilities, and the shivers she felt originating from her stomach when it got cold was a chilling reminder of that. There were several other instances, but this one topped them all. 

No ASJ has ever been reported to survive a jump that exceeded a distance of ten light years. The very fact that she is being put up to this task stuck up multiple red flags, but she swore her allegiance to the board, and it wasn’t something she could take back without endangering her family. Refuting their orders could cost her mother’s life, and she was not about to risk that. 

Over the next four days, Yerim was isolated in a meditation room so that her concentration didn’t wane. Her eating and sleep schedules were strict, and she made sure to stop her bouts so that her concentration wouldn't break due to an outside or environmental source. Being disturbed would affect her concentration too greatly, and she could not risk a setback for a mission of this importance with two of the most precious people in her life. The books, maps, and outlines she was given helped tremendously as she illustrated the galaxies that resided far and beyond their own. She’s never been to Eden before, let alone anywhere near it, and that made this embarkment even more dangerous. Any and all information she had of Eden and everything surrounding it was artificial and second-hand. It impeded her ability to fully create an image in her mind, and it was one of the biggest reasons she didn’t object in any way. 

Unlike her, Jungeun and Jinsol had grown up wanting to be a part of the Bureau. In the unlikely case that she was expelled, she could always go out and get a different job. Being a part of the Bureau was less of a desire, but more so an end’s meet. Money from missions came in heaps, and her parents could live easy. Yerim could always get a different job if she needed though. Enlisting with the Bureau wasn’t the only way to make big money. But for Jungeun and Jinsol? The Bureau was irreplaceable to them. If Yerim really refused to be a part of this mission, the board would have just assigned other ASJs to take Jungeun and Jinsol, and she would not have that. Yerim wouldn’t entrust their lives to anyone but herself, and it was one of the reasons she knew she had to pull through. 

She spent those four days building the planet of Eden in her brain, familiarizing herself with it as much as she could, and creating a straight path towards it as her mind crossed through the thousands of galaxies that separated them and Eden. If she didn’t, she could end up jumping them to an entirely different place. Or she could fail, and their bodies would be torn apart from the pressure of forcing themselves through space so rapidly. If she had been to Eden before, this might have been easier. But even so, the sheer distance is something she needs to prepare herself for. If she wasn’t, the energy it took to move her and two others so far away could sap her of everything.

She was a DSJ, sure, but she was still human. There were limits to her abilities, and she hoped that this would not be one of them. If not for her own sake, then for Jungeun, Jinsol, and her family. Well, at least Jungeun, Jinsol, and her family would be compensated if something happens to her. 

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

The thought of reuniting with Yerim made them nervous. Neither Jungeun nor Jinsol knew what to expect as they weren’t sure what the younger girl had to have been doing for so long, but they made sure to put on strong fronts as to not put any unnecessary pressure on the younger girl. She was at the tender age of twenty, but had to shoulder a responsibility that had certain death on one side and complete uncertainty on the other. Neither of them knew what that feeling was like, so all they could do was support Yerim as much as they were able. 

They clasped their hands around one another as they stood in the center of the Grand Library. Their founders believed that being surrounded by collective knowledge, despite not having absorbed all of it in the mind, helped an ASJ immensely when making far jumps. It was something about the energy of all the surrounding knowledge helping in focus the ASJ’s mind in creating the necessary image to find the place they needed to be, and it was for that reason that all important missions began here. 

The rumble of large doors resounded and Jungeun and Jinsol stood with held breaths as they watched Yerim appear from the depths of the Library’s basement flanked by two ASJ instructors. Her eyes were shut in concentration as she attempted to hold the images she forced into her brain over the last four days in her mind without losing anything. They were all silent, knowing that any sounds that invaded Yerim’s conscious during this time would greatly affect the success rate of this jump. 

When the instructors successfully guided Yerim to her place in front of Jungeun and Jinsol, they quietly made their exit. It wasn’t until they slipped out of a different door that Yerim opened her eyes, inhaling deeply as she took in the sight of her two companions. Purple rings outlined the outer edge of both of her irises, and she closed her eyes again and held her hands out for Jungeun and Jinsol to take. 

“Are you two ready?” Yerim asked quietly, her head now faced towards the sky as she prepared herself for the jump. 

“Always,” Jungeun answers firmly. 

“We always will be when we’re with you,” Jinsol says softly. Yerim allows a smile to quirk one side of her lip for just a moment before she goes straight-faced again, and takes another deep breath. 

A purple ring begins to draw itself on the ground below them, and the three grip their hands tighter as the moment they had been dreading for the past four days was seconds away from happening. When the purple ring closes, Jungeun and Jinsol hear Yerim groan, her forehead creasing harshly, and her grip on their hands tightening further. But before they could do or say anything, white overtakes their vision and their minds. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’m in no way an expert in astrophysics or anything like it, but just know that facts, my imagination, and fiction are all rolled up together in this story. Oh, the beauty of not having to rely on real-life physics and laws. 
> 
> This chapter also got to be a lot longer than I originally planned, so I hope you enjoyed it. This is going to be a very character-driven story, so it won't have many mind-boggling plot twists… at least I don’t think it will. I’m thinking ten or so chapters? But I am thinking of making a sort of “part 2” of this universe to focus on other things, but we’ll see how that goes. 
> 
> Also question: Does it feel like it's moving too fast? I don't want to turn this isn't a slow burn, but I also don't want it to feel rushed. Feedback on that would be awesome.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	4. Colors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up changing what I wanted for this chapter, so sorry it took a while to get out. I try to plan ahead so that I don’t have to keep you all waiting too long since college likes to take up all my time, but then I sometimes gotta rewrite stuff. I don’t know if any of you reading this are writers yourselves, but if you write something more than once, it just gradually gets worse? Lol, anyway, hopefully I was able to do my ideas justice. 
> 
> Not proofread. 
> 
> Archive warnings are subject to change. 
> 
> Happy reading!

The first thing that registers in Yerim’s mind is the pain in her ears, sting in her eyes, and dryness in her throat and mouth. It hurts to breathe, to swallow, to blink, to move--everything hurt, and it felt so surreal that she may have believed that what was happening to her was all a dream if it wasn’t for Jungeun’s panicky, high-pitched voice making the pain in her ear even more unbearable. 

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

The next time she’s aware of her consciousness is when a bright light shines at her eyes when she tries to open them. She groans in response, but finds that it hurts to do so. She wants to groan again, but stops herself as it does nothing but make the dryness in her throat feel worse than it already does. Her tongue is there. She can feel the muscle moving against her mouth and teeth, but all the liquid is gone, and it’s like the feeling of her tongue is nothing but a phantom limb… Or muscle, she figures. At least her brain is still intact. 

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

She’s awake again when she chokes on water. Well, it tastes like water, but it feels thicker, harder. She coughs as she chokes, and the act makes her realize that her chest hurts like she’s just been crushed or pressed by stones (not that she knows what that’s really like, but she has a vivid imagination). Something or someone shoves the water-not-water into her mouth, and for some reason, it’s a delight to have. She takes it in faster than it can be shoveled in her mouth, and by the time she realizes its snow, she begins to taste iron. She tries to open her eyes and sees red dripping onto the ground as she hangs her head against whatever is holding her up. She’s pulled upright, and when her body swerves too fast for her mind to catch up with, her world goes black. 

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

Jinsol worries her lip as she holds Yerim close to her chest while waiting for Jungeun to return. The Red found some village-like area in the expansive forest down the mountains they found themselves on, and the Red had jumped there with the promise of returning with something, anything, to try and help Yerim. Jinsol quickly blinked away tears threatening to slip from her eyes, but she refused to let them fall until she knew that Yerim would be okay. She had never seen the younger girl like this, not even after what Hojin had done to her. A part of Jinsol wishes she was just living through another Hojin-incident, but no, this was different. This was on a whole other level different, and with no medical knowledge whatsoever, Jinsol continued to feel more and more useless as she waited with bated breath for every time Yerim’s chest would rise and fall. 

Yerim was slipping in and out of consciousness; the skin all around her eyes are black and blue like bruises; her scleras blood red; her lips and eyelids dry and cracked, leaking blood; her body marred with discoloring and marbling; and she was occasionally coughing up blood, telling Jinsol that there was something wrong on the inside as well. 

Despite not being a doctor or anything related to it, Jinsol recognized the discoloration and marbling of Yerim’s skin. It was some kind of space traveling version of decompression sickness, something Jinsol has only known other Blues to have (she’s had it once as well, but it was extremely mild). Yerim’s was of a more serious kind, and though Jinsol was no expert on knowledge of Eden, Jinsol knows what she’s learned from Jungeun, and it’s that this planet is much more primal than theirs is. Jinsol didn’t know what she was going to do if they couldn’t find a decompression chamber or anything like it. 

In the midst of her worrying, Jungeun returns. The Red is lost for a moment before she sees them and jumps the short distance. In her hands are a bucket and some green plants, and Jinsol was about to ask when Jungeun answers for her. 

“Aloe vera, it’s a kind of plant. There’s a desert region way out that way,” Jungeun says while throwing her hand behind her to show the general direction. “And I saw a bunch growing everywhere. This can help with all her cracked skin,” Jungeun says before squeezing on the plant. Jinsol watches with mild disgust as the clear insides of the plant get squeezed out, but then watches with interest as Jungeun spreads the gel-like substance on Yerim’s lips and on her eyelids. “We’ll have to wash it off with water,” Jungeun says before scooping snow into the bucket with her hands. “Before it completely dries. Then we can reapply it to allow her skin to absorb the moisture again and again,” Jungeun says before stuffing the aloe vera plants into her pocket. “We have to keep going and find a place to stay.” 

Jungeun wraps her arms around Jinsol’s waist and focuses on a drier part of the mountain before creating a warp and jumping them there. The snow hadn’t reached the lower parts of the mountain yet, but without fresh water, snow was their best option. Well, they had spotted fresh water in the form of a winding river, but Jungeun also spotted a pack of shifters roaming around it, so she didn’t want to take any chances, especially with Yerim being as bad as she was. 

“Stay here,” Jungeun tells Jinsol, leading the other to lean against a tree since she knew Yerim wasn’t exactly light to carry for as long as Jinsol has. Jungeun would never say it outloud though unless she wanted Jinsol to proudly prove to the younger that she did in fact have muscles. Jungeun learned from that mistake once already, and she wasn’t about to test the Blue again. “I’m going to go look for a covered up opening in the mountain somewhere.” 

“Make sure the opening faces east, Jungeun. There’ll be even less wind,” Jinsol reminds in case Jungeun gets too hasty and ends up finding one facing a westerly. 

“Yeah, of course,” Jungeun says before honing in on a far off mountain with lots of pines, hoping to find something inside all of that. She marks her spot using the sun and makes sure her echO still is connected to Jinsol’s before she creates a warp and jumps there. 

Jungeun sighs heavily when she finds the hilltop she jumped to is barren of caves and cracks in the rocks. After the next several jumps, Jungeun is tempted again and again with the desire to just jump into the dense forest down below before coming back. 

One reason she hasn’t though, and knows this is the same reason Jinsol hasn’t suggested it, is because their echOs show human footprints within these mountains, meaning that the Earthian they were chasing was up in these mountains somewhere. There are human-like foots down in the forest, but the readings indicate they are native to Eden, as opposed to the readings of the prints in the mountains. 

The human prints are accompanied by wolf prints though, meaning there were shifters close by, and with Yerim needing to be stabilized before they try to engage with anyone or anything, Jungeun decided that the Earthian could wait. If the shifters wanted the Earthian dead, then it would already be too late anyway. 

Jungeun noticed other human prints as well, and though she couldn’t be sure since she hasn’t been able to scan them yet, Jungeun figured that they were the prints of other Earthians as the outlines were distinctly different than the ones she saw in the forest--different shoes, perhaps. But that couldn’t be, right? The Bureau would have known that other Earthians had come to Eden, right? If so, then why would they send their team in the first place? 

The thoughts were pushed back when she finds a cave. It was a bit of a distance away from where she left Jinsol and Yerim, but it would take her no more than two jumps to be in Jinsol’s field of vision as long as she used her abilities to the fullest. It’d take a lot out of her, especially after all her jumping, but it would be worth it. She had to get Yerim somewhere safe, and as she wasn’t able to identify any prints anywhere near this cave, it meant that it either hasn’t been claimed yet, or those who have claimed it haven’t been around. She hoped it was the former, but the latter worked just as well. 

Jungeun angles herself to make sure she travels straight to her team to try and preserve as much energy as she could. She focuses on the spot where she needs to be and already begins to feel the strain in her eye. She was using her abilities to its limits, and it frightened her for a moment, knowing she had to do this there and back. Creating two warps with so much distance between takes the wind out of her, and she falls to her knees in a fit of hacks, feeling her lungs give up on her everytime air is pushed out of them. 

“Jungeun!” Jinsol calls, grunting in effort to lift Yerim to get to her feet and walk over to her heaving teammate. She notices the hand over Jungeun’s eye and snatches the other girl’s hand to see Jungeun’s left eye beginning to hemorrhage like both of Yerim’s have. 

“I’m fine,” Jungeun chokes out while attempting to stand. 

“No, you’re not. Jung, we’re on a foreign planet, okay? I can’t take care of both you and Yerim if you both become incapacitated. Here,” she gently passes Yerim over for Jungeun to hold without waiting for Jungeun to come up with a lame comeback. “Just point and I’ll get us there, okay?” 

“No, Sol. It’s too far, and there isn’t water anywhere,” Jungeun retorts, but fixes Yerim in her arms anyway, knowing she wasn’t going to get far with her argument. 

“Don’t worry about me, okay? You’re the expert on this planet, so we need at least you to stay conscious and able. Just let me do this, okay?” Jungeun opens her mouth again to protest, but Jinsol glowers at her until the Red finally gives in. “Thank you. Now, where to?” Jungeun pointed, and like Jinsol had said, off they went. 

Jinsol wasn’t a Red, so she couldn’t travel as far as Jungeun could, and with no water around, there was no way for her to take advantage of being a Blue. The sun was also setting fast, and it was making it more and more difficult as time went on since her field of vision was getting smaller and smaller. 

By the time they had reached the cave Jungeun found, Jinsol felt a headache coming on. Jungeun said her eye was fine though, so at least she hadn’t overworked herself yet. It gave her some peace of mind knowing that she didn’t have to solely rely on Jungeun on Yerim for travel that was out of her sight. She could do things for them too, and the thought comforted her like nothing else. 

Jungeun offers her berries she had collected while searching for this place, and they sat in silence as the light of the sun soon disappeared behind the silhouettes of the mountains across the forest. The stars in the sky were visible and bright on this planet, but maybe it was just because they were on mountains that they could see them so easily. Either way, it was beautiful, and Jinsol slumped against the cave wall while imagining her home planet as one of those stars. 

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

It had been about a week since they landed on Eden, and they were living off of berries that Jungeun finds and water from the large river that Jungeun had mentioned she passed by once. Jinsol remembers the shifters that Jungeun had mentioned, but the Red assures that she hasn’t really run into any. Jinsol feared they were taking up all the berries in this area, so Jungeun one morning brought back eggs she found in a tree. Jungeun managed to make a fire, steal a pot from the villages in the forest, and make boiled eggs. They were much more sustainable than berries, and Jinsol made Jungeun promise she wasn’t taking all the eggs in the nests she finds. 

Keeping Yerim fed was a terribly hard feat. She continued to slip in and out of consciousness though not nearly as often as before, and since she barely had enough energy to chew anything, they resorted to pounding the berries they find into juice. Jungeun has been keeping an eye on several nests, and when she finds one with eggs recently hatched, she takes them to give to Yerim for it to just slide down her throat. She wouldn’t get protein otherwise, and they weren’t going to let Yerim down by not feeding her properly. 

When Yerim was awake though, she no longer complained about the pain she had felt in her ears. Her voice didn’t croak as much either, and the whites in Yerim’s eyes were half uncovered now. Jinsol pressed her often to get Yerim to confess if she felt pain anywhere, and like Jinsol had expected, her body was sore. It was likely due to the bends, but it likely was also just a result of the far jump. Yerim also confessed to having a hard time breathing, but Jinsol chalked it up with the altitude change. She hadn’t noticed Yerim coughing up blood lately, so she figured that whatever it was happened to be a fluke. 

Despite it all, Yerim assured that she was somewhat better now. They all agreed that it would be okay to begin travelling now, with Jungeun and Jinsol taking turns carrying Yerim on their backs as the younger girl got as much rest as she could. For once, Jungeun was happy that it took time and effort for Yerim to wake up, because it meant that even while moving the Purple from one back to the other, she stayed dead to the world. 

With Jungeun and Jinsol much more revitalized with their time in that cave, they decided that it would be okay to search for that Earthian now. They backtracked to where the prints were and followed them to the base of a hilltop. They decided to jump to a higher hill to get the vantage point, and they’ve been sitting there for what was probably hours. They haven’t been able to spot any activity from this side of the hill, and they could only hope that they wouldn’t have to stay here through the night. It was progressively getting more and more cold, and being out in the open like this was not only a danger because they had no coverage from predators, but if Yerim got sick, it could worsen her already poor state of health. She was steadily healing, and they didn’t need anything to impede it or set it back. 

The sun was beginning to set when Jungeun spots movement, and it was in the form of a white shifter emerging from the forest. It was alone too, from what it looked like, and no matter where Jungeun searched, she couldn’t spot any shifters in the immediate area of this one. Jungeun feels Jinsol’s hand on her shoulder, and when she turns to the Blue, she meets concerned eyes. 

“Jung, come on,” Jinsol says. Yerim shifts in Jinsol’s arms, but Jungeun doesn’t notice. 

“Watch her for me,” Jungeun says before backing away from Jinsol’s reach, and jumping to the shifter. 

“Jungeun, wait!” Jinsol shouts the moment she sees Jungeun’s warp above the shifter. Jungeun is gone in the blink of an eye though, going through her warp, and coming out beside the shifter and throwing a kick at it. The beast dodges easily though, seemingly sensing her presence before she is even close. The beast shouldn’t at all be accustomed to their ways, so it surprised Jinsol to see how it was able to track and evade most of Jungeun’s rapid attacks. 

Jungeun isn’t surprised though, her body instead welling up with frustration as she can barely land a hit on this beast that isn’t dodged or blocked. Jungeun is sure to jump several times, even going a step further to open up feint warps to try and trick the shifter, but those burgundy eyes followed her every move, and it frustrated Jungeun to no end. She grunts in exertion as she didn’t expect this bout to be so exhausting, and she carelessly attacks an already guarded flank. The beast was quick to notice her fumble, and the large body stood on its hind legs before its head pushes Jungeun to the ground. It’s forelegs land heavily right beside her head, trapping her underneath it. Jungeun felt a chill run down her spine at how close she is to sharp canines, but snaps out of it when the beast turns its attention elsewhere. She creates a warp a safe distance away to see Jinsol and Yerim engaging with it as well. 

Without a clear thought, she continues on. 

Jinsol kept it busy at a close distance while Yerim smartly picked at its open spots when it faced the opposite direction. Jungeun was about to join the onslaught as the beast was becoming overwhelmed, when she heard a howl from behind her. She whips around to see three new shifters, one being particularly large in comparison to the other two behind it. Jinsol and Yerim jump to her, and they place their backs to one another, watching carefully as the four shifters circle them like the predators they are. They weren’t sure if the other three shifters were as skilled as the first one, but the sudden rush from one of the new shifters told Jungeun otherwise. 

Jungeun creates a warp right above the incoming dark shifter and easily lands a solid kick to its eye. It yelps at the sudden pain before wildly snapping in her direction. Jungeun could see it coming though, creating a warp behind it to swipe at its leg, causing it to stumble. She feels a presence behind her and turns to see one of the smaller shifters running towards her with teeth bared. Before she could jump away, Yerim jumps to her and creates a warp a solid distance away from the center of the action. 

The smallest shifter was behind the dark one, making sure it was okay, while the white one from before was still occupied with Jinsol. The new red one keenly watches them, not making any moves to be aggressive as opposed to the dark one. Jungeun is about to engage again when she feels Yerim’s arms that were around her go slack. Jungeun immediately turns her attention to the younger girl to notice how much harder she was breathing and how much more she was sweating. Yerim still needed to rest after taking them so far, and Jungeun ignoring the fact that the girl had joined in combat did not help. She knew the girl was stubborn, but this was pushing her limit, and Jungeun cursed at herself for not paying more attention and being distracted. 

Jungeun keeps a defensive stance similar to the red shifter before her, and moments later, a blue warp appears, and out comes Jinsol. The other girl is worn due to the bout with the white shifter, and Jungeun is now stunned at the knowledge that the beast was able to keep up with both her and Jinsol. It approaches slowly, watching them carefully, before standing between them and the other three shifters. This one must be the major.

 _“More creatures,”_ she hears the white one say. Jungeun clenches her fists in an effort to hold herself back. She wants nothing more than to take hold of the shifter’s head and slam it into the ground, but she has more important things to take care of. She glances behind her to see Jinsol tending to Yerim, likely lulling their youngest back to sleep. It isn’t the best thing to do in a time like this, especially because Yerim would become dead weight while asleep, but Jungeun has to believe that either she or Jinsol would be able to fend off these shifters off long enough for the other to get a distance away. 

_“What do you think they want? They don’t smell like Earthians,”_ the red one says. 

_“They’re probably here for Yeojin,”_ the white one replies. Jungeun watches as the dark shifter rushes to its feet at the suggestion before angling itself between Jungeun and the cave--den--she now spots within the forest. Jungeun’s eye glowing red must have been spotted as the white shifter growls lowly and moves to intercept her. Jungeun is too fast though. 

_“Hyejoo, get back to the den!”_ But before the dark shifter even turns, Jungeun’s eye already hones in on the entrance of their den, and she creates a warp right in front of it. She only has a few moments before the dark shifter gets to her so she has to act fast. The moment she walks past the den’s threshold, she expects to find the Earthian they were tasked in finding. Jungeun does in fact spot the young Earthian, but she didn’t think she’d also have a weapon pressed against the back of her head. Something slides around her ear then, and she feels a pinch at the side of her head. 

“On your knees,” the monotonous voice says. Jungeun didn’t immediately respond though, as she was not one to take orders like this, but before she could form a retort, her body collapses as the backs of her knees are knocked harshly. She hisses as she falls to the ground, but didn’t dare give away any other sign of weakness. “I know what you are,” the voice says as the weight of the weapon returns. “You create a single warp and I will not hesitate to end you,” they say so softly that Jungeun would think they were lying. 

“Kahei, you can put the gun down,” That is, until she hears that. Jungeun looks up to see a familiar short haired woman smiling at her kindly. The weight of the weapon is gone, and when the wielder moves to stand beside the short haired woman, Jungeun sighs in relief as she hadn’t dared test the words that came out of the pink haired woman’s mouth. 

Jo Haseul, leader of the most elite squadron on the planet Earth under the renowned Headquarters. She’s known as the youngest person to ever reach the rank of squadron leader and was even offered a position within the HQ’s government ranks. Wong Kahei, former member of the ADS and one of their planet’s most experienced eliminators. Jungeun has read a report stating that she is rumored to never have failed an elimination. Behind them, Jungeun recognizes three others. Jeon Heejin, youngest daughter of a family of accomplished squadron leaders, eliminators, and government heads and known for being quite the genius in regards to any and all sciences across the known universe. Kim Hyunjin, former criminal turned squad member said to be able to build and repair anything she puts her hands on, including city-reliant generators and individual-reliant prosthetics. And of course, Jo Yeojin, younger sister of Jo Haseul, and the youngest person to ever register in a squad. 

Jungeun wondered if they--with the exception of Yeojin--were even supposed to be here or not. Her team wouldn’t be on this mission if they knew Jo Yeojin’s squad was coming to get her, and now they were stranded as Yerim had to recover and rest before being able to even think about taking them back to Oec. It also didn’t help that they had these beasts infesting this dreaded planet. 

“My name is Jo Haseul,” the short haired woman introduces herself to Jungeun. “I hope we didn’t startle you at all with this,” Jo Haseul offers a hand, but Jungeun smacks it out of her face to get up on her own. Wong Kahei didn’t seem to like the aggression, but Jo Haseul didn’t seem to be bothered. “I’m sure you’re already aware that we are from Earth. How about you?” 

Jungeun is about to give her the shortest answer she could offer (she would never admit it aloud, but she is a bit afraid of Wong Kahei) when she hears Jinsol’s unmistakable voice whisper to her from behind. She whips around to see Jinsol carrying a sleeping Yerim, as well as the beasts standing behind them. Without thinking, she creates a warp between the two groups and presses close to the white shifter. The beast didn’t move at all though, meeting her with an unwavering gaze. Red met burgundy with anger as she stared the beast down, but was knocked from it when she hears an unfamiliar sound. 

“Kahei, put it down,” she hears Haseul command. The pink haired woman has that weapon up again, but it is glowing red this time, telling Jungeun that she is indeed ready to fire. She glowers slightly before putting it down. 

“I told you I wouldn’t hesitate,” Wong Kahei says quietly towards her, and Jungeun is once again reminded not to test the seriousness of what she says. Without a word, Kim Hyunjin walks up to Wong Kahei to confiscate her weapon, and Jungeun feels slightly safer. Though the presence of the beasts didn’t give her any sense of security. She faces them again to realize that they are beginning to walk away. With their backs turned, Jungeun is tempted to take a shot at them, but she is outnumbered, and if Wong Kahei gets a hold of her weapon again, she doesn’t believe she’d get away with her life a third time. 

The white and red shifters are walking away without looking back, while the other two turn back several times, slightly hesitant to walk away without eyes on the enemy, but following the former two anyway. The former pair were likely the major and their mate. 

“Well, it seems we have more cavemates,” Jo Haseul says with a smile before walking further into the cave to retrieve a backpack of sorts. “It’s a good thing we always bring extra supplies,” she announces to no one in particular. The statement resounds in the others though as Jeon Heejin and Kim Hyunjin shrug to one another before going to other packs. Wong Kahei is slightly more hesitant to do so, but does in the end. “Lucky that Sooyoung and her pack also have human clothes and blankets stored, or we might have run out!” The statement largely goes ignored. 

Jungeun hears rustling behind her, and she turns to see Jinsol press herself against one of the cave walls and slowly sliding down it. Jungeun rushes over to offer the minimal amount of help, as Jinsol knew how to take care of herself, before watching as Jinsol cradles Yerim in her lap. Yerim’s brows knit together for a moment, and Jinsol easily smooths them out with a few strokes over the younger girl’s forehead and a light humming. 

“Um,” an unfamiliar voice calls. Jungeun turns to see Kim Hyunjin with three rolled up sleeping bags, of sorts, an extra blanket, and two ring-like devices. “These are for you. Kahei-unnie says that since your friend there needs to rest, it might be best to give her an extra layer. Sooyoung also warned that winter comes fast around here so beware of the morning chills… And night chills. These are comms from your friends. There are translators built in,” Kim Hyunjin says quietly. Jungeun takes the offered items with a nod before offering Jo Haseul a glance. The short haired woman was watching from a distance with a blank face, but offers a kind smile back when she catches Jungeun’s eyes. 

“Jungeun,” Jinsol calls from the floor. “Say thank you to them, will you?” she says with a quirk of a smile. Jungeun pouts, making sure Jinsol is the only person who can see, but Jinsol nods her head over anyway. Jungeun can do nothing but sigh. 

“Hey,” she calls out to Kim Hyunjin’s retreating back. “Um, thanks,” she says as softly as she can without sounding too confident, but not too loudly either lest she risk her voice cracking. She doesn’t think Kim Hyunjin hears her as her back is still turned, but Jungeun notices her nod, meaning she has acknowledged it. Kim Hyunjin promptly returns to her squad, and five of them began conversing among themselves. 

Jungeun is about to settle when the shifters return. She scowls at them, and when the dark shifter growls at her, she takes a step forward with her chest puffed out. The dark shifter doesn’t back down though, gray orbs swirling with anger, and its fur standing on end, making it appear even larger than it already is. 

“Hyejoo,” a voice calls from the rear. “In the den, now,” the white shifter says, leaving no room for argument. The dark shifter grumbles before padding into the den, followed closely by the silver shifter. The white shifter gives them one hard glare before settling at the mouth of the den. Jungeun wants to bring Jinsol and Yerim farther in the den to stay as far from the white shifter as possible, but her attention is instead on the red shifter who is pacing in place. “What is it, Jiwoo?” the white shifter calls. 

“I think I’m going to shift, Sooyoung. Maybe it’ll help the humans settle,” the red shifter says. 

“Do you still have clothes?” 

“Yeah,” the red shifter says before walking into the back corner of the den and retrieving a pile. It exits the den and stands off to the side, the white shifter lifting its head to keep an eye on them. Minutes later, a woman returns, and she flashes Jungeun a bright smile. “Hey,” she tries while moving to sit in front of them. 

“Hello,” Jinsol offers. “I’m Jinsol, and this is Yerim,” she introduces. Jinsol then looks over to Jungeun expectantly, and the Red knows she can’t do anything but follow through. 

“Jungeun,” she says. The redhead smiles again in response. 

“I’m Jiwoo. This is Sooyoung,” Jiwoo says while using a hand to pat her hind. The white shifter grumbles in response. “The dark shifter is Hyejoo. She’s not great with strangers, I apologize for her actions. The smaller one is Chaewon,” Jiwoo says before fixing the cardigan around her shoulders. Jungeun’s eyes fall on Jiwoo’s neck and notices the lack of a mating mark. “Anyway, if you need anything, feel free to ask. Um, you girls can stay here for as long as you need. Your friend here looks really bad, and we’d hate to send you out there with winter coming in. Right, Soo?” the white shifter grumbles again, and Jiwoo rolls her eyes with a smile. 

“I wanna apologize for attacking you,” Jinsol suddenly says. Jungeun looks at Jinsol like she’s grown two heads, but the Blue ignores her. “We wouldn’t have if we knew you all didn’t mean any harm.” 

“Don’t worry about it! No one really got hurt in the end, so what’s in the past is in the past,” Jiwoo says before looking at the night sky. “I should leave you all to rest. Please, again, don’t hesitate to ask for anything. We’ll be happy to help,” Jiwoo pats Jungeun’s knee reassuringly, but the Red nearly jumps at the contact. The shifter looks taken aback for a moment before flashing one last smile and crawling over to the white shifter. 

“Jiwoo, you should go huddle with the Earthians or something if you’re gonna stay unshifted,” Sooyoung mumbles. 

“Yeah, but you’re warmer,” Jiwoo says before laying next to Sooyoung. The white shifter moves the two of them so that her body separates Jiwoo and the den’s entrance. 

“Chaewon and Hyejoo have twice as much body heat than I do,” she says before settling down anyway. 

“Yeah, but I like cuddling with you more,” Jiwoo says. Sooyoung grumbles in response before closing her eyes. Jiwoo follows suit with a smile when she feels Sooyoung curl around her as much as she could. 

“See? They’re not all bad,” Jinsol whispers to Jungeun. The two of them had watched the two shifters with interest, and Jinsol had to admit that it was kind of cute. 

“Yeah? Well, wait till they get hungry and try to eat you,” Jungeun says. Jinsol simply sighs and tightly warps the blankets she has around Yerim, making sure her feet are also covered. 

“Anyway, good night, Jungie. Please actually sleep,” Jinsol teases, but knows that Jungeun would in fact stay up the whole night trying to make sure the shifters don’t try to kill them in their sleep if she didn’t say it. Jungeun is silent, obviously contemplating her choices now that she had been caught, but Jinsol taps her chin once to get Jungeun to look at her. “Please? For me?” the Blue says softly, and Jungeun turns away, unable to stare for too long. 

“Sure, whatever,” she says, looking away from the other girl. 

“Thank you, Jungie,” Jinsol says, a smile heard in her voice. Jinsol casts one more glance at the shifters mere feet away from her and kisses the top of Yerim’s head before falling asleep with the thoughts of the stars watching over them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter than the last one, but the last one was just absurdly long, lol. I felt like I was ignoring OEC these past couple chapters, so I made this chapter focus on them. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	5. Frozen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I apologize for the wait--I feel like it’s been quite a while. With the world apparently coming to an end, leading to everyone buying everything, it’s been kind of troublesome when I want to go out and buy a couple things from the store, lol. This, coupled with Sooyoung saying, “uri Haseulie” when they got their first win (DESERVE!), the YveSeul stan in me was forced to rewrite a lot of things, lol. Dammit, Sooyoung! But also, thank you, Sooyoung! Because I realized that if I wanted more YveSeul content, I was gonna have to write it myself. 
> 
> Not proofread.
> 
> Archive warnings are subject to change. 
> 
> Happy reading!

Jinsol never slept with anything in her bed. Sure, sometimes she'd curl up around her blue betta fish plushie and the comfy red blanket Jungeun got her for her birthday one year, but that was only when she had her off days. Her off days became more and more scarce as she got older though--when she got more independent and more confident in the person she was. Jinsol never slept with anything in her bed, yet the absent weight of Yerim not in her arms jolts her awake. Her eyes blow up to scan her surroundings while blinking rapidly to make the sleep go away.

"Ye-yerim, Yerim!" she calls out almost blindly as her vision is foggy from her dry eyes. 

"Jinsol, Jinsol!" a familiar voice calls out to her before hands come to grip her shoulders. "Hey, Sol, come on back down," Jungeun says while holding her face in firm hands. The younger's forehead is wrinkled in concern, and Jinsol is reminded of another time. 

"J-Jung... Jungeun, where's Yerim?"

"Okay just... don't panic, okay?" Jungeun prefaces, her eyes darting everywhere and her tongue wetting her lips out of nervousness.

"Jungeun, what are you-"

"Yerim had a... a complication? Last night? Wong Kahei and Kim Hyunjin are light sleepers, a-and you know I am too. And! I didn't want to wake you 'cause you just looked so tired and worn out, and-"

"Jungie, stop rambling, where is she?" Jinsol asks, effectively shutting the younger up.

"U-um..." Jungeun mumbles before moving aside to let Jinsol's eyes wander further into the cave where Yerim was with some device around her head. She also noticed a pool of blood around the younger girl, and she immediately panicked. Kahei is carrying Yerim's body, her arms shaking just slightly for Jinsol to know that she's been doing this for quite a while. Hyunjin was staring at some glowing screen-thing radiating from the device around Yerim's head.

Jinsol isn't sure why she hasn't gone over there to smack the living crap out of the Earthians doing goodness knows what to their youngest, but Haseul meets her gaze from her position beside Kahei as she has Yerim's head propped on her leg, and Jinsol for some reason relaxes. Heejin was grinding something inside of a mortar and pestle, mumbling all sorts of strange things to herself. Yeojin was busying herself with waving useless hands around Yerim's body, trying to do  _ something  _ to be of use, only for Haseul to push her hand away when she got too close.

"What's happening?" Jinsol asks after observing the Earthians for several moments and not really being able to put together anything. 

"Your friend here had a tear in her left lung," Hyunjin says in a strangely calm voice. "Because of that, she was choking on blood in her sleep. So I cut into her side-"

"Wait, you cut her?" Jinsol says incredulously, getting up on her knees, only for Jungeun to hold her down.

"Sol, just let her finish," Jungeun says. Jinsol holds Jungeun's gaze before sighing, relenting. Hyunjin seemed to take that as a sign to continue.

"So I cut into her side, stuck this tube," she says while tapping the tube that lay beside Yerim. "Into her lung to drain the blood out." Hyunjin's finger traced the tube as it wound itself in several circles before leading right back to underneath Yerim. "Sorry about her shirt, by the way," Hyunjin says with just enough sincerity that Jinsol somehow found it in herself to believe she meant it. “We figured the angle of the den could do the work and then forgot to drain it somewhere. Kahei-unnie only lifted your friend here after we realized we needed to elevate her body.” 

"Hey, I'm back,” a voice suddenly interrupts. “Oh, morning, Jinsol," Jiwoo says from the entrance of the den. Her hair was tied back this morning and her hands were covered in dirt as they carried some small, green plants. Jinsol sees Jungeun stiffen at Jiwoo's appearance, and if the shifter notices, she doesn't show it. "Sphagnum moss, right?" Jiwoo asks while making her way towards Heejin. The Earthian spares what Jiwoo has in her hands a single glance before nodding.

"Hyunjin," she murmurs, the sound barely heard, and her lips barely moving. Hyunjin throws an arm back though, her other occupied by something in the air that Jinsol can't see, but is sure the Earthian can, if her eyes darting all over the empty space meant anything.

"Moss, please," she requests softly. Jiwoo quickly places it in the girl's hand before she tosses it into a container beside her. Haseul then uses her free hands to flip a switch on said container, and it soon begins to glow orange.

"What is that?" Jungeun now asks.

"Think of it like a fire without the use of any actual fire. Hyunjin had the nanobites create a bowl-shape before programming them to take in the heat around it and convert it into heat that is concentrated on what's inside of it--water and the moss."

"What are you doing with it? The water and moss, I mean."

"The water is going to be boiled to disinfect the moss as it may have bacteria, and then we'll dry the moss before applying it on the cut by Yerim's side to seal it. We could just use nanobites, but we'd rather use them for something other than a small cut."

Hyunjin suddenly takes the tube that is in Yerim and bends it in half. At first, it flexes like a plastic, but one twist and pull by the Earthian, and the tube snaps in two. The part still in Yerim remains in the tube form, but the part that was separated becomes stiff and straightens like a rod. Hyunjin has both ends of the rod against her palms before she compresses it into a sphere, expertly turns it into a cube, and sets it down in front of her before typing away again in the air. The previously blue-colored nanobites turn a darker shade of blue, and when they do, Hyunjin takes them again in her hands before somehow pulling them apart from one another and creating a hollow box-like structure that only has four sides covered. She then places it carefully over Yerim's head, and after three quick strokes of her finger, it begins to glow that dark shade of blue.

"What'd you just do? How'd you do that? What're you doing to Yerim? What's happening to her? Why're you doing this? And where're-" Jinsol rapid fires, only to be stopped when Hyunjin puts a hand up. 

"I reprogrammed the nanobites. I did so by connecting their internal servers to access their many, many different functions. I'm saving her life. She's suffering from the bends--well, sort of--and she needs decompression treatment, which is what this box-thing is for. Because I'm not heartless and am not going to just sit here and watch her die. And if you're looking for the other shifters, they went to go fetch some magical water."

"And how did she-"

"It's the bends, but not really the bends," Heejin interrupts. "Due to the lack of knowledge I possess on your interspatial--or rather, extraspatial--travels, I am unable to firmly extrapolate a conclusion as to why your friend here is suffering from the bends. Though my theory is that the spatial travel of such a distance--as your other friend here," she gestures to Jungeun. "Has explained to me is a near impossible feat that most likely leads to death--forced your friend here to sacrifice some of her power and energy to make sure the two of you were not affected by the crushing pressure of advancing through space at such a speed that exceeds my very comprehension as the astronomical spectrum of speed calculations only extends to the speed of light. My discernment of the faster-than-light theory is also somewhat immature, but even so, the theory itself is rather conjectural, and because of the insufficient information I have on you alien creatures, I am unable to tell you, without a doubt, a reason that your friend here is suffering such a thing," Heejin finishes without missing a beat and without looking up once. Yeojin looks concerned as she tries in vain to figure out what just rolled off of Heejin’s tongue, but the rest of the Earthians didn’t seem unsettled. They either understood exactly what she said, or this happened often. Jinsol liked to assume the latter. 

"O-oh, um... I was just gonna say that Yerim had the space-bends," Jinsol offers. Heejin is quiet for a moment as she stops what she's doing to think about that. Her face is tight in concentration before she nods.

"The space-bends... I like it," Heejin says with a squint of her eyes and a small, wryly smile before getting back to whatever it is she's doing.

Jiwoo moves over to Kahei's side, and when she does, the older woman looks at her, confused. Jiwoo holds her arms out, showing that she can take over holding Yerim, but Kahei just stares.

"Kahei, she's trying to switch with you," Haseul says, trying to make sure Kahei understands what Jiwoo is trying to communicate.

"I know, but it's not necessary," Kahei says before averting her gaze.

"Kahei," Jiwoo now says. "You've been holding Yerim for hours. At least let me help you out for a little while."

"U-um, I don't need help..." Kahei says, but is now aware of how exhausted her muscles are. She tried zoning it out so she wouldn't focus on Yerim gradually feeling heavier as the hours passed, but the attention on it made her arms begin to shake even more.

"Hey, it's okay to ask for help," Jiwoo says gently with a bright smile. She holds Kahei's gaze to express her sincerity, and Kahei is captured by the strange peach color that makes up Jiwoo's irises. Kahei's never seen anyone with eyes of that color, and it kind of reminds Kahei of the soft pink color she likes so much. Jiwoo’s eyes are pretty, she deduces. "Here, pass her over," Jiwoo says softly while moving lightly, knowing how delicate the movements had to be in order to keep Yerim stable. They didn't have a flat table or anything like it to lay Yerim on, so unless they managed to find two identically sized logs or several identically sized stones to keep Yerim off the ground to allow gravity to drain the blood and fluids out of her lung, this was the next best thing they could do.

Kahei glances over at Haseul, and the other woman nods encouragingly at her. Kahei relents then, moving in tandem with Jiwoo to make sure Yerim isn't tousled at all. Yeojin noticed Heejin eyeing the tube in Yerim's side and decided to help out by holding the tube in place. Heejin looks up and gives her a thumbs up, and Yeojin gives her a toothy smile knowing that she managed to be of use.

"Oh, Sooyoung and Hyejoo managed to hunt down several deer for you all to eat," Jiwoo suddenly says. "I had my fill with them before they left with Chaewon, so the rest is yours!"

The rest of them all look to one another and grimace at the thought of dead deer right outside the den. Hyunjin doesn't seem to mind though as the girl shrugs and looks around with furrowed brows.

"So is anyone going to go and cook the deer or what?"

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

“Wait, so, this water is magical?” Hyejoo asks Sooyoung when they arrived at the lake at the center of the Forest of Wonder. Hyejoo always wondered what was at the top of the Basilisk, but she never found the time to go figure it out herself. So when Sooyoung mentioned going there, she immediately wanted to go. 

_ “I think you should stay here, Hyejoo,”  _ Sooyoung had told her. Hyejoo was about to ask when she follows Sooyoung’s gaze to Chaewon. The omega was conversing with Yeojin, probably the only human Sooyoung completely trusted right now, and if it were only the Earthians here, Hyejoo was certain that Sooyoung would readily accept her request to go since she didn’t mind the other Earthians. But burgundy suddenly change focus to look at the new humans in their den, and Hyejoo suddenly understands where the major’s hesitation is coming from. 

_ “Right, okay. I’ll stay here with Chaewon, then,”  _ Hyejoo had told the major. Sooyoung nodded and turned before embarking on the trek with a light trot. Hyejoo was going to turn to be with Chaewon when Jiwoo suddenly comes into her vision, the beta still unshifted in her human form. 

_ “I thought you said you wanted to go with Sooyoung?”  _ Jiwoo asked, turning with a confused expression between the major and the minor. 

_ “I do, but I think it’s best if I stay here and make sure those… Oec people leave Chaewon alone,”  _ Hyejoo had said before turning to Jiwoo.  _ “And you, of course! Gotta make sure they don’t try and attack you either!”  _ Hyejoo said, slightly panicked. The beta just giggles though before using her hands to ruffle through Hyejoo’s head fur. 

_ “Just ask Chae to go with you. I know you’ve been dying to go to the Forest of Wonder, and Chae has too. Just invite her and run after Sooyoung before you lose her,”  _ Jiwoo said with a smile before going into the den to talk to the Earthians about one of the Oec people’s condition. Apparently she started coughing up blood or something, but Hyejoo wasn’t exactly sure. She was still asleep, and by the time she woke up, the Oec girl was already getting blood drained out of her. 

Hyejoo does just as Jiwoo suggests, and though Chaewon felt a little bad about leaving Yeojin behind in the middle of their conversation, the Earthians called Yeojin to help them out anyway, so it all worked out. Luckily for them, it hadn’t snowed hard yet, and because of that, Sooyoung was still visible. Sooyoung looked just about warmed up though and was about to sprint, but Chaewon, with her quick thinking, howled just in time for the major to turn around and see them coming down the hill. 

They’ve been on the path to the Forest of Wonder ever since. Sooyoung led them to the edge of the Basilisk before sparing them but a glance before she was off sprinting. As the path was familiar to her, Sooyoung followed the Basilisk with ease, probably able to do so even with her eyes closed. Chaewon managed to keep up despite her smaller strides. She observed the major was sprinting slower than she normally did, and her smaller strides and Hyejoo’s lack of stamina were likely the reasons why. Though Chaewon had the stamina to keep up with the alpha, Hyejoo didn’t. Sometime along the way, Hyejoo had to keep a close eye on Sooyoung and Chaewon as she trailed further and further away. When she finally did lose them, she resorted to just following the Basilisk like they had been, and soon enough, she came up to see a waterfall pouring down a hill grander than the one their den sat upon, with trees she’s never seen before growing atop it. 

She climbs the hill slowly as there is no exact path, and with Sooyoung nowhere to be seen, Hyejoo is on her own for now. She moves carefully along the side of the hill, as unlike their own hill, this one is nearly vertical with nothing but rocky ridges to push herself up. Hyejoo, for a moment, thinks that this may be easier if she unshifts, but she is already halfway up, and unshifting while trying to balance herself on a sketchy ledge probably isn’t the best idea. 

Hyejoo hadn’t expected a workout. She should have thought about it considering she’s spent nineteen years of her life having never seen the Forest before, but she still didn’t think that it would be this far out and take this much effort to get there. How were they even supposed to bring the water back? 

When she finally made it to the top, Hyejoo had to take a moment to reorient herself. She exerted way more energy during hunts, but hunts at least had a reward at the end of them. Climbing up a mountain for magical water though? She saw no reward in that. 

The view is stunning though. The trees that made up the Forest are bright green, a color she rarely saw around since there were mostly pines up in these mountains. The air was warm and clean too. The air was always clean up in the mountains, and with winter upon them, there was a coolness to it. But it was warmer here, humid almost, but not humid enough to feel stuffy. The water that ran through the Forest and down the hill was so clear that Hyejoo could see right through it, and the sight of it made her want to dunk her head right in and refresh herself. And she would have done just that if a paw didn’t come and swipe at her ear, catching her attention.

"Hey, what? I'm dying of thirst here!" Hyejoo sneered at the major. 

"These are sacred waters, Hyejoo. We don't drink straight from the source or else you’ll taint it. We are only allowed to drink what the lake gives us, so if you want to hydrate yourself, go back down to where the main body of the Basilisk is," Sooyoung says before moving towards the opposite side of the lake. Chaewon, who is now beside her, shrugs before following the major, and Hyejoo just sighs before trailing behind the omega. 

Sooyoung walks over to where there is a pile of buckets near a fallen tree and grabs one of the handles with her mouth and drags it through the water once before lifting up with a nod when it is filled with said magical water. She sets the bucket down for a moment, bowing her lower half at the edge of the lake and looks to them to do the same. Chaewon follows immediately, never one to go against Sooyoung, but Hyejoo looks at the major strangely. 

“Why are we doing this now?” she asks. 

“We’re giving thanks. Unless you want the Basilisk to be stained red, I suggest you do the same,” Sooyoung says, but Hyejoo just scoffs at the thought. 

“Please, that must be some urban legend or something. There’s no way some higher being exists to dirty the waters if we don’t say thank you,” Hyejoo says, but doubt creeps up on her when Sooyoung’s gaze doesn’t waver. 

“I mean it, Hyejoo. Give thanks to the waters, and we can get a move on,” Sooyoung says before taking the handle between her teeth again and making her way back the way they came. Chaewon waits for her, and Hyejoo has to give the omega a look. 

“Really?” she whispers, trying to make sure the major doesn’t hear. 

“Just do it,” Chaewon shrugs. “I don’t know if it’s real, but if it is, I’d rather have given the minimal effort to bow to some random lake than have a bloody river we can’t drink from,” the omega points out. Hyejoo finds her point convincing enough and follows what her pack members did. She and Chaewon then quickly make their way back, hoping they didn’t take too long. Luckily for them, the major decided to wait for them at the edge of the cliff, and the moment they neared her, she began her descent. 

"Wait, that's it?" Hyejoo calls out, realizing that all they did was run for goodness knows how long before getting a bucket full of apparently magical water. 

"Yes. These waters are here for us to drink from as it flows down the mountain, and for healing properties, nothing more. You said you wanted to see the Forest. You've seen it, now let's return before I regret taking in those new people,” Sooyoung says without looking back. The older alpha is nearly halfway down already as she easily makes her way down, and Chaewon has to whisper to Hyejoo to get a move on as the two try to catch up. Minutes of struggling later, and they reached the bottom of the cliff, and once again, Sooyoung decided to wait for them. 

“Decided that leaving us behind was a bad idea?” Hyejoo asks. 

“It’s getting dark. I don’t need you two getting lost, especially with Chaewon’s preheat so close,” Sooyoung says before beginning the trot back. 

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

Jiwoo says a whispered thanks to the bucket of water when they return with it, and it makes Hyejoo curious as to why she has never heard about this before. She knew the Forest of Wonder was believed to have some sort of magical, otherworldly properties, but she didn’t know how much the inhabitants of the Back believed it. They never needed the supposed healing properties of the waters in the lake, and since it was so out of the way, Sooyoung and Jiwoo never mentioned it. She doesn’t remember any sort of tales or legends like this from the Tail, and it makes Hyejoo wonder if there was some kind of special lake or anything over there. 

The new human is resting in one of the blonde’s lap again, while the latter converses with Haseul. Hyejoo, for a moment, wants to lay near them to listen in on their conversation, but she decides against it when Sooyoung does just that. Jiwoo seems to have caught on and gives the alpha a slap on the back before moving to Haseul and the blonde. 

“Hyejoo,” the alpha hears Chaewon call for her. She immediately turns to the omega and moves over to her, no longer caring about what the humans are up to. Chaewon is sat beside Yeojin, the youngest Earthian having become pretty close to them now. “Look, Hyejoo. Yeojin says that this is a video game,” Chaewon says when Hyejoo lies down beside her. 

“Hey, Hyejoo,” Yeojin greets without looking up from whatever it is she’s doing with her comm. The so called video game is being projected from the comm that is still around Yeojin’s ear, and Hyejoo follows what the Earthian is doing with interest. Chaewon and Hyejoo watch Yeojin as her expressions change from desperation, to frustration, to concentration, and to distraught as the projection flashes red. “Agh! I lost again!” Yeojin says while throwing her arms up. 

“Yeojin, quiet,” Haseul whisper-shouts. “Yerim is sleeping,” she reminds. The blonde beside her just smiles and puts a hand on the Earthian’s shoulder. 

“Don’t worry too much, Haseul. Yerim’s a really deep sleeper, and she certainly won’t wake up from something like a little shouting.” 

“Tell me about it,” the other blonde says. “I have to yell at her every morning just for her to wake up, and most of the time, it doesn’t work unless I pull her blankets off of her,” the other blonde says with a hint of a smile. 

“Hyejoo probably wishes she was a deep sleeper,” Jiwoo says. She’s sat beside Kahei while playing with one of Sooyoung’s hind paws. Kahei looks strangely at Sooyoung’s large body in front of her, and Jiwoo even grabs the Earthian’s hand to lay on Sooyoung’s thick coat. The alpha growls at the foreign touch, her ears flipping back to give attention to what was happening. The shorter blonde nearly jumps at the sound, and the taller blonde grabs for the former’s arm which seemed to calm her down. Hyejoo has noticed the smaller blonde being quite jumpy around them, and she briefly wonders why before her attention is diverted back to Yeojin as she restarts her video game. 

Kahei doesn’t show off her fright as much as Jungeun has, but her fear must have been radiating off of her as Jiwoo uses her other hand to run through Sooyoung’s coat beside hers. The alpha relaxes at the familiar touch, and seeing the reaction allows relief to wave off of her. Kahei timidly follows suit, moving her hand cautiously through the fur, as the immediate danger has passed. 

“Sorry about that,” Jiwoo says softly towards her. “Sooyoung’s not used to people touching her when she’s shifted, and despite how scary she may seem, she’s really just shy,” the shifter says without a care that the older shifter is right there listening. The hand that Jiwoo has around Kahei’s hand tightens as she guides Kahei’s hand through the thick coat, and when the Earthian finds her own rhythm, the shifter lets go. 

“It’s so soft… And warm,” Kahei whispers. She slowly glides her hand through thick fur and is amazed at how easily her fingers thread through. 

“With how cold it can get up here during the winters, it’s best that our fur is able to keep our body heat locked in. Sooyoung’s fur is probably the thickest out of all of us since she’s lived here nearly her whole life.” 

“Where are the rest of you from? If you don’t mind me asking,” Kahei asks softly. Jiwoo notices all ears and eyes on her now (well, besides the kids in the back), and as she gets no sign from Sooyoung, she decides that it’s fine to talk about it all. 

“Chae and I are from the Cauldron. It’s pretty warm there year-round, with the winters being cold, but nothing compared to how cold it gets up here. I don’t think I’d ever seen snow up close before I moved here with Sooyoung,” Jiwoo says with a small smile, remembering the days where she’d run through the dense forest that made up most of the Cauldron playing hide and seek or tag with her friends from childhood. “Hyejoo is from the Tail. She spent some time in the Cauldron, but her fur is still most similar to Sooyoung’s.” 

“I hear you all say that a lot,” Haseul breaks into the conversation. “Things like Tail and Back. The Basilisk I learned is the river, and I’m assuming the Cauldron is that valley down there?” Haseul asks while pointing out of the den. 

“Yes it is. The Back refers to the Snake’s Back, which are the mountains we live on. The Tail refers to the Dragon’s Tail, which are the mountains across the Cauldron. Our ancestors named them after their shapes, with the Back winding across the land similar to the Basilisk, while the Tail simply arcs. Sort of like that,” Jiwoo points to Sooyoung’s tail which is slightly curled. The attention was unwanted and Sooyoung brings her tail in against her body to get eyes off of it. 

Jiwoo spots Haseul giggle at the sight, and then spots one of Sooyoung’s ears flip back to acknowledge the sound. 

“So how did you all meet?” Jungeun then asks. “It seems you all came from pretty different places, and it doesn’t sound like you and Chaewon knew one another when you two were in the Cauldron.” Jiwoo glances to Sooyoung to still see the major unfazed by the question, but if she knew anything about Sooyoung, then it was to keep their most precious secrets safe. Jiwoo also sees her two other pack members actually paying attention now, and Jiwoo sighs, collecting her thoughts. 

“Um,” Jinsol cuts in. “We didn’t mean to invade your privacy. If the question is too personal-”

“No, it’s fine! Well, Sooyoung was in the Cauldron for… Business, I guess,” she says. The alpha seemed amused, huffing with her ears now flipping and turning with interest in the conversation. “I met her around that time, and I guess you can say I ran away with her,” Jiwoo jokes, knowing that if she got any deeper, she’d delve to a place she didn’t want to go. Sooyoung’s tail extends then, sweeping the den floor to slap lightly against her leg, and Jiwoo smiles softly at the silent support. 

“Ooh, eloping, are we?” Haseul asks with a bright smile. “I’ve heard a little bit about you shifters. I know you guys have, like, mates and stuff. Are you and Sooyoung-”

“Oh, no,” Jiwoo laughs then, and even Sooyoung chuckles. The alpha still doesn’t move to join the conversation, but she sure is invested now. “Soo and I might have gotten, uh, frisky in the past,” Jiwoo says and smiles when the tail comes and slaps her leg again. “But it never got any further than two shifters finding comfort in one another’s skin.” 

“You two would be disgusting,” Hyejoo says from the back. “Just imagining you two together? Ugh,” the alpha shudders with a toothy smile. It brings laughter into the den, and Jiwoo is happy that they could all have a civil conversation without death glares being passed around. Jiwoo notices that Kahei doesn’t laugh though, the Earthian just staring at her entwined fingers and fidgeting with them. It’s then that Jiwoo pays a little more attention to the other woman, and she picks up a strange scent from Kahei. She decides to leave it alone though when a familiar howl echoes in the sky. Sooyoung shoots up from her position on the ground and slips outside, her howl quickly joining in filling the silent sky. Jiwoo notices Hyejoo getting up, but she points a finger at the minor, stopping her in place. 

“No, you stay. That’s Seoryeong, and if she’s all the way up here, chances are something has happened, and I’m not leaving Chaewon by herself,” Jiwoo says. She’s about to take her clothes off to shift when a hand comes onto her shoulder. 

“I can go with Sooyoung, if you want,” Haseul offers. “If you can’t be separated from the youngsters, then I’ll gladly accompany Sooyoung in your place. I have to repay you all somehow for giving us food and shelter for as long as you have.” 

“I appreciate the offer, I do. But you wouldn’t be able to keep up. Not if something really has happened and they break out in a sprint,” Jiwoo says. The Earthian just rolls her eyes and doesn’t bother to turn her head as Hyunjin throws something at her. Haseul catches the flat board with one hand and begins making her way out with a bit of a smile. 

“Watch me,” she says before tossing the flat board on the ground, only for it to glow purple and begin hovering. The Earthian expertly steps onto the board without it tilting or tipping, before she speeds off on the board. Jiwoo only sighs before turning back into the den to be met with Hyunjin giving her a thumbs up. 

Haseul breaks into the cold with a violent shiver, so she pulls one of the lapels of her jacket to reach the place Hyunjin programmed the access point to the nanobite system and clicks the small, green circle once. A low hum resounds as the previously green circle burns light blue, and Haseul shivers again as she feels her jacket begin to rapidly warm her body up. She clicks through her comm to find the remote status reader, and sees that it’s already connected to her jacket. 

_ “Nice work, Hyun,”  _ Haseul thinks before she glances at the time she has.  _ “About five hours. Alright, well, let’s hope this is over before then.”  _

Haseul makes her way down the hill, and it takes her a while to find Sooyoung and the new group of shifters, but she finds them eventually when she rounds the south side of the hill. The new shifters bristle at her sudden appearance, but Sooyoung assures them she’s fine, before gesturing her over. 

“Where’s Jiwoo?” Sooyoung asks when she’s within earshot. 

“Hyejoo wanted to come, and Jiwoo said she didn’t want to leave Chaewon alone, so I offered to come in her place so that she could stay with the both of them. I figured you wouldn’t trust the rest of us to watch the youngsters, so I came instead. You can watch me,” Haseul says with a shrug. Dark burgundy studies her face for a tad too long, and Haseul quickly grows uncomfortable under the gaze. “I didn’t mean actually watch me, but-” 

“Right, sorry,” the alpha says while promptly averting her gaze. Her eyes move from her to the new shifters before she sighs and nods her head towards them. “Um, this is a pack we’re pretty familiar with. They live towards the south, over by the Forest of Wonder.” 

“Isn’t that where you brought Chaewon and Hyejoo earlier today?” 

“Yeah. Some nons are stirring up some trouble over there despite the Forest being shifter territory, so Seoryeong and some other packs are going around gathering allies to rush them out,” Sooyoung says, but then Haseul has to wonder. 

“That’s it, right? We’re just rushing them out?” she asks, meeting burgundy as they narrow at her. Haseul doesn’t let up this time, needing to know exactly what she was going to be getting herself into. 

“Well, I may or may not have one of their necks between my teeth if one of them decides to turn on me,” the alpha admits, and Haseul sighs, knowing she probably should have seen this coming. 

“Look, I didn’t come for death, okay? I know I’m already asking a lot with you taking us in, but aren’t these the people that Jiwoo and Chaewon grew up around? Shouldn’t you be… I don’t know, somewhat more forgiving with them? Maybe they’re young kids who don’t any better,” Haseul suggests. She notices something flash in the alpha’s eyes for just a moment before she turns away and exhales heavily. 

“I don’t need you with me if you’re afraid of a little blood. This is shifter territory, and everyone in the Cauldron knows it. We don’t invade the Cauldron, and they don’t come up here. But fine, if you’re so insistent, I won’t crush a non between my teeth. Let’s just hope I don’t have to if one of them targets you,” Sooyoung scoffs before turning to the other pack and gesturing with them to go. 

“All good?” one of them asks. Haseul presumes it’s Seoryeong though as the rest of the shifters look to this one for direction. 

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Sooyoung says. Seoryeong then howls, the pack following, and Sooyoung mirroring them. As they begin their run, Haseul follows on her hoverboard, and she looks into the sky in wonder when distant howls return theirs. It takes a little over an hour to get to the location at full sprint, and at the realization, Haseul internally panics because she isn’t sure she’ll have enough time before the nanobites need to be recharged. Sooyoung looks back at her a few times, her expression questioning, but Haseul just shakes her head every time, and the alpha doesn’t push. 

When they arrive at the base of the hill that the Forest of Wonder sits on, Haseul notices at least two other packs due to seeing two distinct groups. One of the shifters from one of the already situated packs trots over to Sooyoung in greeting, and soon, all the shifters gather. 

“It’s just you, Sooyoung?” 

“As usual. Jiwoo’s with Chaewon and Hyejoo. Oh, and this is Haseul. She’s… complicated. Don’t talk bad about her, in case you’re inclined. She understands everything,” Sooyoung says. There is a nod from a select few shifters, and Haseul assumes those were the majors of each pack. 

“So, how are we doing this?” 

“Just like we always do, yeah? Oh, but Seoryeong, you and your pack have never done this before, huh?” the shifter nods. “Alright, well, then just following Hyojung and her pack. I’ll take the solo path like always and meet you on the other side of the Forest,” Sooyoung says before moving to the hill without an answer. Haseul watches as the others disburse, and she quickly turns to follow Sooyoung. Haseul’s glad that Hyunjin had installed a vertical-climb function, so she’s actually able to follow Sooyoung as she makes her way up the wall. Just as she’s about to reach the top, Sooyoung turns to her. 

“W-what?” Haseul flinches back, not used to having teeth in front of her face. 

“I think you need to get off your glowy-thing. It’ll attract too much attention,” Sooyoung says. 

“Okay then,” Haseul says. She extends her arms to the rocky wall to find places to hold, and carefully dismounts. She grabs the still-floating hoverboard, and with a practiced flick of her wrist, the hoverboard stops glowing, and falls apart from its shape as a flat board and into a rod. She needs both hands to push them into a compact object though, and she looks to Sooyoung for help. “Um,” she says, and the alpha sighs before reaching down and grabbing the back of her jacket between her teeth. 

“Go,” she mumbles, and Haseul closes her eyes and lets go, surprised that her jacket hasn’t torn. She quickly pushes the two ends of the rod together and shoves them into a pocket on the inside of her jacket to keep it safe. 

“Alright, thank you,” Haseul says before scrambling for the wall again. Sooyoung nods and just stares, and Haseul takes that as her cue to climb up first. So she does, and after a few lifts of her body, Haseul realizes that she doesn’t have the strength to keep going. 

“Hold on, okay?” Sooyoung says, noticing her struggle. “Don’t move,” she says firmly before quickly going the rest of the way up. Once she’s over the top, the alpha sticks her head over the edge and leans down, to no avail. “Ugh, hold on,” Sooyoung groans before retreating back over the top of the cliff. The next thing Haseul sees is Sooyoung’s human form poking her head over the top of the cliff, and dropping a longer arm down for Haseul to grab. “On three I’m going to hoist you up, okay?” 

“Yeah, okay,” Haseul says, adjusting her feet on the two ledges she found, ready to push off. 

  
“Alright. One, two, three!” Sooyoung whisper-shouts, groaning as she uses all of her body weight to drag Haseul up the rest of the way. Haseul uses as much of her feet and other hand as she is able to help Sooyoung in getting her up, and when she reaches the edge, her hands scramble to hoist herself up with Sooyoung now moving to grab under her armpits and lifting her up the rest of the way. 

Haseul ends up flopping onto top of Sooyoung as they both catch their breath on the ground, and it isn’t until Sooyoung practically shoves Haseul off of her does Haseul bother to get up, finding Sooyoung’s longer body comfortable to lay on top of. When she does and has reoriented herself, Sooyoung has already shifted, her ears pointed up and forward to listen for any foreign sounds. Against her better judgement, Haseul reaches for the dagger attached to her belt. She wraps her hand around the weapon, but doesn’t unsheathe it yet, hoping that she wouldn’t have to use it at all. 

“Put your hand against my back,” Sooyoung says to her. “I don’t need to lose you in here, especially with nons roaming around with unknown intentions.” Haseul nods and follows direction, slowly placing her left hand just above Sooyoung’s hind leg. The alpha stiffens for a moment at the contact, but relaxes before she bends down to begin sniffing the ground for anything. 

“Can’t you just use your superior senses to figure out where I am?” Haseul asks out of curiosity. She knows that canine species have better olfactory and hearing than humans, and Sooyoung’s nose and ears constantly twitching at the slightest rustle of leaves or buzz of an insect is proof enough for Haseul. 

“Yes, but I’d rather I have you within grabbing distance in case we get ambushed,” Sooyoung replies quickly before her head snaps up. Haseul ducks at the sudden movement, fully expecting something to come in their direction, but after several seconds, she hears and sees nothing. 

“What?” Haseul asks cautiously, still squatted on the ground while peeking over Sooyoung’s body. 

“I hear voices over that way, and it’s no one I recognize.” Her ears flip in the opposite direction then, and Haseul turns to see a few shifters approaching them. She recognizes this shifter as Hyojung and some of her pack. 

“You hear them too?” Sooyoung asks without turning her head towards them. 

“Of course. I left Seunghee to lead Seoryeong and her pack on the opposite side so we can corner them and drive them off the other edge,” Hyojung says. 

“Did you see anything? How many were there? Do you know if they brought anything with them?” 

“I couldn’t exactly tell, but I could see maybe five gathered together, and they had these long, rod-like objects with them. Sound familiar to you?” 

“They brought guns with them,” Sooyoung growls. “Bringing weapons onto sacred land… Sacred land that isn’t even theirs.” 

“Do you remember the range of them?” Hyojung asks after a beat. One of the shifters with Hyojung looked nervous suddenly, and Haseul looked to Sooyoung to see the fur along her spine standing on end. 

“Depends on what kind they brought with them. Did they look slim in form?” 

“Yes. Long, yet slim, and somewhat rectangular.” 

“Probably a shotgun, maybe even a musket, depending on what angle you saw it from. It means these are either amateurs, or just extremely stupid,” Sooyoung mumbles. She sighs heavily before turning to Hyojung. “Go back to Seoryeong and tell her and her pack to go back. We don’t need this many for something like this, especially since they’re inexperienced.” 

“And after?” 

“Just wait till I give you the signal, and then come and help me chase them off the hill.” 

“Will you be okay on your own?” Hyojung asks, though she already looks about ready to leave. Sooyoung looks back at Haseul once before smirking just a bit. 

“Yeah, I’m sure the little human will be able to assist in her own way.” At that, Hyojung looks to Haseul and nods deeply before going back the way she came, the other shifters in tow. 

“Are you serious?” Haseul asks when she’s sure the other shifters can’t hear them anymore. 

“What? I’ve done this before, don’t worry about it. You can stay here if you want,” Sooyoung says before advancing without her. 

“Hey, wait!” Haseul whisper-shouts, making sure to place her hand against Sooyoung again. She places her hand on her sidearm in place of her dagger, seeing that this will most likely become a long ranged encounter. She reaches for her comm to activate the night vision function. It’s been way too long since she’s used the function, so it takes her eyes and brain a while to get used to suddenly seeing the dark forest as if the sun were out, but eventually, she gets used to it, and being able to see restores the confidence she lost when entering the unknown area. 

“What’d you just do?” Sooyoung asks when she stops them behind a tree. 

“You heard that?” Haseul asks, surprised since she figured she hadn’t made much noise at all. Sooyoung flicks one of her ears in response, and Haseul hums in understanding. “Yeah, I switched the night vision function on my comm on.” Sooyoung, who was previously crouched, looks up and turns back, her eyes narrowing slightly. 

“Can you do that for me?” Sooyoung asks. 

“You can’t see?” 

“I may have superior hearing and smell, but I can’t see in the dark.” 

“Oh, alright. Well, come here, let me connect your comm to mine so that I can take over its controls,” Haseul says, and Sooyoung remains still as Haseul crawls towards Sooyoung’s comm. Hyunjin wasn’t here, she realized, and without her, Haseul wasn’t sure how to do this the way the younger normally would. So instead, she pushes her ear against Sooyoung’s and hopes their comms are touching. 

“What the fuck?” Sooyoung says, flinching at the sudden contact. 

“Sorry, I keep forgetting to ask Hyunjin to teach me how to do it remotely. Just give me a moment,” Haseul says quickly before using both of her hands to flip through her controls to mirror Sooyoung’s to hers. Luckily, she’s well-versed in all of their comms’ functions, so she quickly makes the connection, and flips the switch on Sooyoung’s night vision. She only knows it works when Sooyoung groans, and Haseul turns to see the alpha’s eyes shut. 

“What the-” 

“I know it’s weird at first. Sorry, I forgot to warn you. It’ll take just a moment to adjust, I promise,” Haseul says, her hands unconsciously moving to weave her fingers through the alpha’s thick fur and over her stress lines. Within no time, Sooyoung’s eyes flutter open, and Haseul is momentarily struck at the deep burgundy of Sooyoung’s irises. 

“Holy shit, it’s like morning,” Sooyoung says. Her head snaps around, amazed at being able to see everything in the dark that her eyes normally couldn’t. “Well, this is going to make this even easier.” With that, the alpha begins moving again, much faster than she previously did now that she could see as clear as day. Haseul, feeling comfortable, stops crouching, now walking side by side with Sooyoung at full height. But she freezes when Sooyoung suddenly pauses, her ears perking up, and all her attention directed to their right. The alpha turns back and grabs Haseul’s jacket between her teeth and drags her to the ground. 

“Ah-!” Haseul yelps into her hand. She crashes to the floor, her head dizzy from the unforeseen impact, and when she’s just about to push up to ask what happened, she feels the heat of Sooyoung’s body disappear, accompanied by the alpha’s growls. 

“There! It’s running!” Haseul hears before there is a racket of voices all shouting orders and directions. Haseul peeks from behind a tree to spot several people split up with guns up and aimed as they tried to find Sooyoung. Haseul notices one of them reloading, and she reasons that Sooyoung dragged her to the floor because they had been shot at. 

_ “Just a single shot?”  _ Haseul wonders, and with that in mind, she begins to approach slowly, moving from tree to tree to lessen the chance of her being seen. She made sure to keep all of the others in her sight in case one of them happened to get around her and get her from behind. 

Haseul ducks down when one of the people raises their gun up, but then Sooyoung emerges from the brush from behind them. They scream, surprised, and Haseul fears no one will get out of this without blood being shed. To her surprise though, Haseul hears only a loud snap before she watches as half of the gun is thrown into the air. 

“There!” one of them shouts and fires in the place Sooyoung had been. Haseul doesn’t hear a yelp, so she is confident the alpha had already escaped that area. Haseul makes her move then, reaching for her dagger, but not drawing it yet. The blade she had equipped acted like a laser, so Haseul was confident it could cut right through the musket. The only issue was that it produced a bright light, and it would certainly attract attention. She doesn’t act until she’s close, reciting to herself the technique Kahei had taught her once. 

“Hey!” she shouts, catching the person off guard. They whip around in surprise, and when Haseul gets the opportunity, she strikes just below their chest with as much force as she could muster. Kahei had told her that this was the best way to temporarily incapacitate anyone she needed to run away from, and it helped that Haseul wasn’t exactly strong enough to cause permanent or fatal damage.

They reel at the contact, their hands dropping the musket and whatever it is they’re using to reload it, as they bend over to hack up coughs as the air is knocked out of them. Haseul quickly snatches the musket and sprints away from the scene like her life depended on it (which she supposes it is). When she’s a sufficient distance away, she unsheathes her dagger as quickly as she can, and cleanly cuts through the rusty iron of the musket before sheathing her dagger again. She ducks immediately to see if anyone spotted the glow of her dagger, and her eyes scramble as she tries to spot anyone. Her heart is beating so fast that it’s all she can hear, and in that moment, she fears she’s breathing too loudly, so she slaps her hand over her mouth. 

Haseul recoils when her eyes catch a spark in the distance, and she assumes it’s from another shot. Realizing that she had left Sooyoung on her own, Haseul squats against the tree she is hiding behind to breathe in deep, hoping to calm her nerves enough to be able to get back out there and assist in any way she can. Her hands shake against her face, and though she’s sure the nanobites in her jacket are still functioning, she can’t help but shiver as unpleasant chills run along her spine. 

She’s still trembling when she decides she’s hid long enough, but her stomach drops when she turns up to see the end of a muzzle pointed right at her. She can’t bring herself to move at the sight, and her breath gets stuck in her throat, and she feels her body shiver violently as goosebumps rise all along her skin. Haseul is sure her life flashes before her eyes before a white mass comes and knocks the person above Haseul to the ground. 

Haseul then snaps to see Sooyoung’s mouth clenched around the musket that the non below her is using to prevent her from getting any closer, but the musket cracks and snaps under the force of her weight and bite. Haseul then catches something flash in Sooyoung’s eyes before the alpha moves to bite the neck. 

“Sooyoung!” Haseul exclaims quickly. The alpha stops with her teeth already around the person’s neck, and furious burgundy move to meet her eyes, testing Haseul’s resolve. Haseul refuses to back down though, certain that she doesn’t want to see Sooyoung kill anyone, though she’s sure the alpha has done so before and would have if she hadn’t said something. The alpha just snarls instead before howling into the night sky. Howls return immediately, and Haseul hears barks and yaps resound through the forest. 

The person under Sooyoung is dragged several feet by their clothing, before Sooyoung tosses them like a ragdoll. The terror in their eyes is painfully obvious, and Haseul almost feels bad, if these people weren’t just earlier trying to kill them with guns. Sooyoung snarls at their feet that are kicking them away from the shifter as fast as they could, but they soon scramble onto their hands and knees and sprint away. Sooyoung runs after them, her pace relaxed as she snaps at their feet to hurry them along, and though Haseul isn’t able to catch up, she’s able to see the other shifters converge towards the same area Sooyoung is driving this person, and Haseul watches as they rush off the edge of the hill. 

Haseul feared there wasn’t anything down there but a drop off, but Haseul reaches and looks over to see rope ladders that are hanging from being hooked onto trees. Once the nons all reach the ground and begin to break into a sprint, Hyojung and her pack members reel the rope ladder up before tearing it to pieces so that it isn’t usable. 

“Phew,” Hyojung sighs when they’re done. “Piece of cake like always, yeah?” she asks Sooyoung. 

“Of course. These kids are nothing like those in the war,” Sooyoung replies. She breathes in deep once before she turns. “At least they’re gone for now. Hopefully this won’t become a regular thing,” Sooyoung says with a bit of a smile. 

“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t hate seeing you, Sooyoung,” Hyojung says before moving to bump heads with Sooyoung. “Hopefully the next time I see you, it isn’t just so that we can force some nons off the mountain again,” Hyojung says in farewell. Her pack members follow suit as they go their own way down the hill, and Sooyoung sighs again. 

“Another good night,” Sooyoung says in relief. “Ready to go back? You seem exhausted,” she says, and it isn’t until then that Haseul realizes she’s practically heaving for breath. 

“Um, hah, yeah. I think so,” Haseul breathes out before putting a hand on Sooyoung to use her for support. She hears the alpha groan before her cold nose touches Haseul’s hand. 

“Get on my back. I’ve carried your sister around before, and you shouldn’t be much different. Just make sure you don’t fall asleep. Remember that I can’t catch you if you fall off,” Sooyoung says as her snout pushes insistently against Haseul until she slaps Sooyoung away, feeling ticklish. 

“Alright, alright! Goodness,” Haseul murmurs before placing her hands between Sooyoung’s shoulder blades and throwing a leg over the alpha and pushing herself up. It takes her a moment to find her balance, but once she does, she gives Sooyoung the okay, and the alpha begins trotting back the way they came. 

On the way down the side of the hill, Haseul has her front pressed against Sooyoung’s back as she holds onto the shifter for dear life, and is surprised when they make it down with relative ease. Sooyoung put it up with how often she’s climbed the hill making it very easy for her despite the added weight, but Haseul still found it amazing. The shifters really were quite remarkable… 

The way back is silent as Sooyoung trots back at a steady pace, occasionally hastening her pace for lengths of time before she slows down. Haseul figures it’s to preserve energy, especially since Sooyoung had just been hunting down an aggressive enemy, and Haseul is tempted to dismount as she feels bad for using Sooyoung as her transport back. Those thoughts are cut short when her comm alerts her that the nanobites in her jacket keeping her warm are just about done for the time being, and Haseul curses, forgetting about Sooyoung’s superior hearing. 

“What?” the alpha asks, slowing her pace even more than usual to give Haseul her attention. 

“No, nothing, it’s just…” Haseul trails off, not wanting to burden the shifter anymore than she already has. 

“Look, I don’t need something bad happening because your pink haired friend might just slit my throat in my sleep,” Sooyoung says, and Haseul realizes that the scenario wasn’t as unlikely as it may sound. “So, what’s up?” Sooyoung insists. She comes to a complete stop, and she turns her head enough for one burgundy eye to look at Haseul. Haseul only gives out knowing this is unavoidable. 

“My jacket--it’s coated in nanobites that have been keeping me warm this whole time. But they need to be set aside periodically to recharge on their own, and they’re about to reach their limit,” Haseul explains. 

“So basically you could freeze out here,” Sooyoung replies bluntly, and Haseul can’t exactly say no. 

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Haseul says hesitantly. Sooyoung is silent for a while, contemplating their choices. She knows they’re no more than ten miles away from the den, but she was certain the cold would get to Haseul before then. 

“Remember what you did earlier when we went down the hill? Do the same so my body heat can transmit to you. I’ll sprint the rest of the way to increase my body temperature to try and keep you as warm as I can, as well as get you back to a fire, or at least more layers, as fast as I’m able. Alright?” Sooyoung says, and Haseul feels bad again, but does what Sooyoung suggests. 

“Okay, ready,” Haseul says when she thinks she has a grip on Sooyoung’s body. 

The cold hits Haseul like a punch in the face, and she shivers violently at the sudden exposure when the nanobites shut down. She finds some relief in Sooyoung’s body heat, but the rush in Sooyoung’s pace causes the winds to whip by them faster, and Haseul shivers every time a gust flutters its way under her layers and gets into her skin. She ends up gripping Sooyoung’s fur a tad too hard, the alpha wincing everytime she pulls, but Haseul doesn’t notice, and Sooyoung doesn’t say a word. 

Haseul doesn’t remember much from then on, only coming fully conscious when she’s sat in front of a fire with Sooyoung curled around her back like a live, cushy backrest. She registers Kahei and Jiwoo coming and going, bringing her layers and wiping off what she assumes is perspiration as she sweats profusely in front of the fire. She still feels the wind, but with the entrance of the den being enclosed by a thick forest, less of it gets to her and it feels more like a breeze than the gales that were rushing past her before. 

“Hey,” Haseul hears Jiwoo say gently when she tries to open her eyes for the nth time. It must have been more obvious this time as she finally got someone’s attention, and Jiwoo’s voice must have alerted Sooyoung, as Haseul feels her backrest shift behind her. “You okay? You were pretty out of it earlier,” Jiwoo tells her before handing her a cup of hot water. 

Haseul is about to drink when her backrest changes form altogether, and Haseul has to pause for her mind to construct exactly what was going on. Human arms then come underneath her, and she’s lifted with a grunt from Sooyoung as the shifter takes her away from the fire and into the den. Jiwoo takes the time to put it out with a bucket of water before joining them again, and when she does, Sooyoung has shifted back, once again working as a backrest for Haseul instead of having her lean against cold stone. Haseul notices a smirk on Jiwoo lips, but she decided not to question it in case she was hallucinating. She takes a sip of the hot water, and her body shakes momentarily as it gets used to the sudden temperature change. 

“Better?” Jiwoo says before running her hands up and down Haseul’s arms in an effort to physically warm her up. If she were honest, Haseul was quite warm now, what with Sooyoung acting as her personal heater and having sat in front of a fire for goodness knows how long, but Jiwoo looks so eager to help her, and Haseul didn’t have the guts to turn her away. 

“I’m getting there,” Haseul says before offering a smile. “Thanks,” she says before taking another sip of the hot water. Her body is finally getting used to it, so instead of the mild burning sensation she feels as it travels into her, she now feels the warmth radiating throughout. 

“Of course,” Jiwoo says before flashing a bright smile. “Kahei over here wouldn’t sit still or relax, so I had to take over so she would stop fussing over you so much,” Jiwoo teases. Kahei… pouts? 

“I have never seen Haseul like that before. I just wanted to make sure nothing bad happened to her,” Kahei says softly. 

“And I told you I had it under control, so no worries!” Jiwoo beams. Kahei’s eyes shift for a moment, likely unsure how to take in how intensely positive Jiwoo was, before she nods tersely and begins fidgeting with her fingers. “Well, anyway,” Jiwoo returns her gaze to Haseul. “We should all be turning in for the night. Plus, you need as much rest as you can get because we don’t need you catching a cold, what with-” 

“Winter coming, I know,” Haseul says, and Jiwoo giggles in return. 

“Sorry, we aren’t used to nons being up here, and since none of us spend ample time in our human forms, we aren’t exactly sure how fragile your bodies are with this cold.” 

“It’s no problem. Thank you for taking such good care of us. You really didn’t have to, and I’ll always be grateful.” 

“Well, we couldn’t have just left you all to die out there!” Jiwoo says. Sooyoung grunts underneath her, and Jiwoo giving the alpha a playful slap and immediately moving to shift before situating herself in Kahei’s lap either meant Sooyoung countered Jiwoo’s statement, was telling the beta to call it a day, or both, Haseul supposes. 

Haseul shivers again several minutes after Jiwoo has gone to lay on Kahei, and when she does, Sooyoung stirs. The Earthian lifts herself off, thinking she was causing the alpha some discomfort, but Sooyoung instead reorients herself to be sure Haseul doesn’t make direct contact with the wind. Sooyoung is silent as she moves, burgundy orbs trained to the floor, and Haseul thinks it's cute. 

“Thank you,” she murmurs as softly as she can against Sooyoung’s ear, hoping no one but the alpha can hear. She giggles to herself when the ear flicks at the sudden feel and sound of someone whispering into it, and she smiles to herself when she hears a rumble from Sooyoung’s chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unnie line ships are finally up, and I’m going to pray nothing stirs any of my other ships because I’ve already rewritten several scenes to fit the pairings, lmao. 
> 
> Anyway, California has just issued a statewide order to stay at home, which means that it’s gotten pretty bad now. Wherever you all are, whatever your age, and whatever your day job, I hope you all stay safe and healthy. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
